Golden Moon Bakery

The Golden Moon Bakery smelled of sugar and lotus paste. The owner, an old woman with flour on her hands, looked at the box.

"Yes, that's one of mine. A young man bought it yesterday. He works in the kitchen at the Grand Lotus. He asked me for an empty box, which was a little suspicious. He said he wanted to put his own mooncakes inside, for his mother."

"Do you know his name?" asked Priya.

"Leon. He comes here every year."

At the back door of the hotel kitchen, they found a thin young man smoking a cigarette. When he saw the mooncake box in Jun's hands, his face went white.

Priya decided to confront him directly. "You took the ring, didn't you? You hid it in a mooncake to conceal it, and then you lost the bag on the train."

Leon tried to laugh. "That's absurd. A ring in a mooncake? Nobody would believe that."

"The police will," said Priya, and her voice was stern, serious and hard. "They have arrested Encik Hamid for something you did."

For a long time Leon said nothing. Then he began to mutter, so quietly that they could hardly hear. "I only wanted to help my mum. She's ill. I thought one small ring was a trivial thing for a rich hotel."

"It isn't trivial for Encik Hamid," said Priya. "He has a family too."

Leon's face was grim. He knew there was only one thing left to do. That afternoon, he walked into the police station with Priya and Jun and told the truth.

Encik Hamid went home that night. The ring went back to the hotel, and it was genuine after all.

On the train home, Jun looked at Priya. "How did you know it was Leon?"

"Small things," she said. "The broken mooncake, the empty box, his white face. The clues were subtle, but they were all there."