The Advocate's Devil Read online

  THE

  ADVOCATE’S

  DEVIL

  Text © 2002 Walter Woon

  First published 2002 by Times Books International

  Reprinted 2003 by Times Books International

  © 2010 Marshall Cavendish International (Asia) Private Limited

  This edition published 2010 by

  Marshall Cavendish Editions

  An imprint of Marshall Cavendish International

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  National Library Board Singapore Cataloguing in Publication Data

  Woon, Walter C. M.

  The advocate’s devil / Walter Woon. – Singapore: Marshall Cavendish Editions, 2010.

  p. cm.

  eISBN-13 : 978 981 4435 79 6

  1. Lawyers – Singapore – Fiction. 2. Singapore – History – 1867-1942 – Fiction. I. Title.

  PR9570.S53

  S823 — dc22

  OCN613300884

  Printed in Singapore by Times Printers Pte Ltd

  To my parents Woon Eng Chwee and Lee Peck Har,

  and to the memory of my grandparents

  Woon Chow Tat and Cheang Seok Cheng Neo.

  CONTENTS

  The Body in Question

  The Widows’ Tale

  A Prince Among Men

  Evelyn

  The Advocate’s Devil

  Nurse’s Orders

  The Red Cell

  Crossroads

  Glossary

  The Body In Question

  MADELINE. There’s no mistake about it. That’s her name in the papers all right. And that photo. Still as beautiful as I remember her. What has it been now? More than sixty years since the last time we met? Half a century? I can still recall the day clearly. It was the day she lost her husband.

  It was 1937, some time in July. I can fix the date with some accuracy, because it was just after I started reading in chambers. Business was slack just about then, and we pupils were left much to ourselves. The three of us were lounging in chambers — myself, George (he was plain old George then, the “Sir” came many, many years later) and Ralph. They used to call us The Unholy Trinity.

  Anyway, we were sitting around watching the pigeons dive-bomb the GPO. The little feathered fiends would fly round for a bit, then let loose before perching under the cool granite eaves. We watched the missiles with absorbed interest. We had a bet going. Each of us marked a circle in chalk on the five-foot way. Every direct hit in a circle meant a free drink at the Griffin Club, courtesy of the loser. George was having a bad time. My circle and Ralph’s were plastered with little grey splotches. George’s lay gleaming white in the sun, while he cursed each and every miss. It was a revelation. I hadn’t realised that George was fluent in so many languages.

  George had just let loose with another blistering string of oaths when the door opened and in trundled Moraiss, the chief clerk. Ralph and I buried our noses in Archbold on Pleadings. George, caught in midstream, shut his mouth with an audible snap. Moraiss cast a baleful eye over us. He was short — not more than five feet — and had skin the colour and texture of parchment. When he spoke it was like the wind rustling through dry leaves. Moraiss didn’t approve of us.

  “Mr d’Almeida wants you,” he said, fixing me with his basilisk glare.

  “Right-ho,” I replied with an outward show of nonchalance. An interview with the All-Highest, no less. What little treats, I wondered, had he in store for me. Swallowing my trepidation, I fell into step behind Moraiss as he shuffled out of the room. It may have been my imagination, but I always fancied that Moraiss left the smell of mildewed books wherever he went. I followed him through the dim musty corridors, by scent as much as by sight.

  We came at length into a panelled anteroom. The room was stacked high with books from floor to ceiling. Ancient tomes, grey with age, ready to flake into dust at the merest glance. My eyes skipped from spine to aged spine: Moore’s Privy Council Appeals, Leicester’s Reports, the Straits Law Journal, an original set of Kyshe’s Reports. Books that were ancient when my father was young. The pungent, unmistakable smell of antiquity pervaded the room. What a fitting den for old Moraiss, who had quietly mummified in this dry forgotten corner of the world.

  At the far end was a solid teak door, beyond which lay the Holy of Holies. There in majestic repose sat Clarence d’Almeida OBE, senior partner of the august firm of d’Almeida & d’Almeida, Advocates and Solicitors. Though he was nominally my pupil master, I had hardly seen Mr d’Almeida in the two months that I had been with the firm. Hardly is the wrong word. I hadn’t seen him at all. When I joined the firm he was involved in the celebrated Opium Murders case, which shook several stuffed shirts out of office. I got the job because my father (of whom I have very little memory) had been a junior partner in the firm way back, so it was almost literally off the boat and into the office for me.

  We pupils had been taken in hand from the start by Cuthbert d’Almeida, a perspiring butterball of a man, who bustled around the office exuding jollity and sweat in equal proportions. Cuthbert was Clarence’s brother, but one would never have guessed. He was round, jovial and ubiquitous; a complete contrast to his brother. Cuthbert to us was always Cuthbert; his brother was Mr d’Almeida, with the “Mr” such an integral part of the name that we almost forgot that he had a Christian name.

  Of Number One we saw nothing. To us Mr d’Almeida was just a brooding presence behind the door, with little time for mere mortals and none certainly for the likes of pupils. We all lived in awe of the great d’Almeida, whose advocacy swayed judges and juries throughout the Straits Settlements and the Malay States, and who had never been known to let a client hang.

  Moraiss rapped ponderously on the door. Cued by an unheard summons he opened it and I stepped through.

  The occupant of the high-backed leather chair was facing away from me when I entered, talking to a lady whose slender form was framed in the window. She stood gazing out at the waterfront, the light outlining her with a faint halo. After the gloom of the inner office the brightness from the high glass window was dazzling, and I screwed my eyes up involuntarily against the glare. The man in the chair spun around to face me. I had of course seen photographs, but the reality was to me quite startling. In my mind I had built up a picture of a Zeus hurling thunderbolts of rhetoric at a spellbound jury. Th
e photographs in the old bound newspapers, yellow and fuzzy with age, were of a slim, black-haired man. I pictured him as tall, for some unaccountable reason. I wasn’t prepared for the wizened gnome who gazed at me over a pair of old-fashioned horn-rimmed spectacles. He was about sixty, slight of build and conservative in dress. I suppose that I should have expected an older man; his brother Cuthbert was after all in his fifties. Unprepossessing though he may have seemed on first impressions, his eyes nevertheless gleamed and shone with a penetrating intensity and breathless fire.

  “Ah, Mr Chiang, I presume,” the gnome said to me interrogatively. The words were barked out in a staccato tattoo.

  “Take a seat, take a seat.” He gestured towards a leather armchair in the corner.

  “We have a little mission for you,” he continued in his rapid-fire tone, before I even had a chance to seat myself. At this point the lady in the window turned around.

  “Dennis!” she exclaimed, in a voice that tinkled with fairy bells.

  “Madeline!” I gasped, poised in the most undignified manner with my bottom lowered halfway into the chair. For a moment my mind ceased to work, stupefied by the unexpected vision. Then a hundred memories coursed into my consciousness, a torrent of bittersweet reminiscences.

  I had been an aimless undergraduate when Madeline Strachan had suddenly materialised in my life. She had come up to spend a few months with her uncle, a semi-fossilised don at one of the smaller Cambridge colleges. We were introduced because we both had something in common. Her father had been in the Straits Settlements for many years and had gone native to the extent of having married a Chinese woman, who happened to be a second cousin twice-removed of my father’s, or something of the sort. Anyway, the connection was deemed close enough to justify my invitation to tea. And there she was. I was instantly smitten. Smitten isn’t the word — decapitated, more like.

  Madeline was one of those fortunate alliances of East and West, a handsome delicate creature who inherited the best features from both her parents. She was pursued by every male undergraduate from a dozen colleges; and I was at the head of the pack, baying with the rest. I actively sought her, and she seemed to enjoy my company. I found that I was with her more and more, cutting lectures and supervisions with reckless abandon. We went walking and punting and dancing. We went to the theatre, to the movies. We cycled to Huntingdon and beyond. Then there was that unforgettable week in Paris (properly chaperoned, of course) — window shopping in the Rue de la Paix, lounging in the cafes on the Boul’ Mich’, watching the artists at the Place du Tertre. And when one glorious summer day she linked her arm through mine as we sauntered down King’s Parade I was the envy of every red-blooded male in Cambridge. Then she was gone. The summer was over, and she went back to her father in some God-forsaken Scottish lowland town. Nursing my broken heart I threw myself back into my studies. Barely scraped a pass that year. But now, unlooked-for and unheralded, she had suddenly materialised again. What a fantastic, glorious opportunity....

  “I see that you know Mrs Russell,” said d’Almeida drily.

  Mrs Russell...? I felt as if someone had just demolished my universe with a sledgehammer. I collapsed heavily into the armchair.

  “Poor Dennis,” laughed Madeline, not unkindly. “I’m sure you must have been as surprised as I was.”

  She glided over to me, holding out an exquisite hand. I shook it rather limply. My eyes were riveted on the little golden band that adorned the other hand.

  “Yes... yes, forgive me, it was quite a surprise seeing you here unexpectedly like that.”

  D’Almeida glanced at me quizzically over his spectacles, but said nothing.

  I forced myself to say the words. “Congratulations on your marriage,” I said, trying to sound natural, “Who’s the lucky fellow?”

  “Alec,” she said, “Alec Russell. Perhaps you know him?”

  As a matter of fact I had heard of Alec Russell, though we hadn’t actually met. Russell was the darling of the local amateur dramatic society and a star cricketer. His family had been in the Straits Settlements for nearly half a century, and it was said (not very loudly in his hearing though) that his dark hair and dark eyes were a little local colour introduced as a result of a trifling dalliance on the part of old man Russell in his forgotten youth. Untypically, young Alec had been brought up in the Colony instead of being hived off to England at a tender age. Alec Russell was popular with all classes, spoke the local lingo like a native, knew and was known by everyone in the Colony. I decided that I didn’t care for the blighter.

  “I thought you were still in Scotland,” I said, still trying to suppress my emotions, “with your father.”

  “Well, when Daddy died I came out east to be with my Aunt Emily. She was Daddy’s only sister, you know.”

  “I am sorry,” I mumbled, painfully conscious of having put my foot in it.

  “Don’t be. I met Alec on the boat out. We were married a year ago last month.”

  A year ago. Barely a year after our glorious summer together. I sighed. How quickly some people forget.

  D’Almeida eased himself into the conversation.

  “I’m glad that you and Mrs Russell know one another. I think that you will not mind the service that I shall ask of you,” he said. “We’ve been acting as executors of Mrs Russell’s aunt’s will.”

  I glanced at Madeline. D’Almeida saw my look and explained, “Miss Strachan passed away some eight months ago. She was fairly well off and left everything to Mrs Russell, to be held in trust until she attains the age of twenty-one. That age will be attained in one month’s time, I believe.”

  He paused and glanced at Madeline, who nodded in confirmation.

  D’Almeida continued, “I understand that Mr and Mrs Russell have formed a settled intention to leave Singapore once she comes of age, and so we shall have to liquidate the trust. The main asset is a house in Bukit Timah, which contains several interesting antiques. I’m sure you wouldn’t mind accompanying Mrs Russell to the house to make an inventory?”

  “It would be my pleasure,” I replied sincerely.

  D’Almeida smiled. “I thought as much,” he said.

  He glanced at the grandfather clock in the corner of the room. “It might be best to do this as soon as possible.”

  I took the hint and rose to leave.

  “You drive, Chiang?” he inquired. I nodded.

  “Take my motor,” he said, tossing me a bunch of keys. “Faster than by cab.”

  He rose from his seat and escorted Madeline to the door. With old-world grace he kissed her hand as he guided her through the portal.

  “Oh, Chiang,” he called as I followed Madeline’s retreating form, “the address.” He held out a slip of paper. Sheepishly I came back and took it. “Try to be back before closing time.” His eyes twinkled. Blushing furiously I trotted after Madeline.

  On the way to the car I stopped at the pupils’ room to pick up my things. Madeline sat just outside while I popped in. George, who has an uncanny ability to sense whenever there is a beautiful girl in the vicinity, was already at the door surveying our visitor. Ralph was peering out from under his armpits. Ignoring their nods and winks, I hurriedly shovelled my pad and pen into a handy briefcase, then beat a hasty retreat. I prayed sincerely that Madeline hadn’t heard some of George’s fruitier comments. There’s no denying that my friends were a pair of lecherous toads (they still are, as a matter of fact, but it doesn’t show so much now that they’re old and respectable).

  The syce had the car out in front of the building when we got down. D’Almeida owned an antique Rolls, kept in immaculate condition, with a rubber-bulb horn. I honked it twice, then roared off down the road. Turning past the GPO, I sped down Collyer Quay in a cloud of dust. The top was down, the sea breeze fresh. The slight overcast meant that we weren’t fried to a crisp. Believe me, there’s nothing more exhilarating than speeding along in a Rolls with a beautiful girl at your side, watching heads turn in the trolley buses. I thorough
ly recommend it.

  “Aren’t we going the wrong way?” asked Madeline, combing back her hair from her face. She looked like a wood sprite with her long hair flying in the wind.

  “No, we’re just taking the coast road. It’s more scenic.”

  “Isn’t it longer than through town?”

  “That too,” I replied. She smiled, but said nothing.

  The coconut trees whipped by. Occasionally we caught a glimpse of sparkling sea-green between the palms. The air smelt faintly of salt. The fresh breeze flecked the wave-tops with white horses. It was hard to keep my mind on the business at hand.

  “This house of yours,” I said, wrenching myself back to business, “isn’t it rather out of the way?”

  “It isn’t mine,” she replied, “Well, I suppose now it is. But we don’t live there. We’ve got a little place out on the east coast. Near Sea View. Aunt Emily was quite a recluse. Didn’t like people. Only really cared for her chickens.”

  “Chickens?” I raised my eyebrows.

  “Yes, isn’t it just too much? Can you imagine my dotty old aunt and her flock? She doted on them. She must have had a thousand of them, clucking around her place.”

  I paused a moment to reflect. “You don’t seriously mean that I have to make an inventory of a thousand foul fowls?” I said slowly.

  She giggled. “Course not, silly. There’s loads of other rubbish all over the place. Aunt Emily was a great hoarder. I don’t think that in fifty years she ever threw anything away. Mr d’Almeida seems to think that some of the stuff might be worth something. That’s what we’ll be looking at. So you don’t have to count your chickens.”

  “That’s a relief. I’m allergic to feathers.”

  “So am I. I don’t like birds. Especially chickens. You know, their little beady eyes. They give me the willies.” She gave a little shudder. “That’s why I never went near the place. Well, hardly ever.”

  We passed several Malay huts on stilts. Little brown figures stood in the water pulling at their nets. The sun glanced off the endless strand as we flashed past.