Narrator
The custom of Somerset Maugham was to create a kind of framing device in which he entered the narrative so as to better situate himself as receiver of the story upon which his tale would be told. Sometimes he would become a character by name and sometimes not. But whether named or not, Maugham fans always knew he was the narrator.
Gaze
Gaze is the head of police as well as a friend to the couple whose story is being related by Maugham. But first he must hear the tale from an interested observer and in this case, there is no one more interested in the events than the policeman investigating the case. The narrator just so happened to be staying with Gaze while on a visit to the town of Tanah Merah on the Federated Malay States. But before Gaze gets to the backstory, the narrator will meet the couple in question firmly in the present, many years after the events Gaze relates.
Mrs. Cartwright
The narrator is introduced to Mrs. Cartwright on the invitation to join them in a game of bridge. She make is clear to the narrator that she has spent a great deal of time playing cards by showing off her dexterity in shuffling the deck. She is at this time in mid-50’s, chatty, capable of dealing sarcasm as well as cards and endears herself to the narrator by virtue of also being willing to take as good as she gave. She is altogether pleasant and content. Which will soon come to seem quite unlikely when the narrator hears that backstory.
Mr. Cartwright
Mr. Cartwright strikes the narrator as such a perfect companion to his wife—people who truly enjoy each other’s company as well as love each other—that he reasons their marriage must have stretched across many years. Part of this deductions is that Mr. Cartwright look a bit old and somewhat haggard. Of course, his assumption will prove lacking by decades, but that does not thing to change the fact that they appear to the stranger’s eyes to have enjoyed a long marriage.
Olive
It is another of the narrator’s misconceptions that inspires the backstory to eventually unfold. Olive, whom the narrator assumes to be around 19 or 20, seems to resemble her father to a more striking degree than her mother. When the narrator casually makes this observation to Gaze, he is surprised to learn that Olive cannot look like Mr. Cartwright since he is not her father. Thus begins the story of what took place about 19 or 20 years ago…four months before the birth of Olive to be precise.
Reggie Bronson
According to Gaze, Olive’s father was actually a man named Reggie Bronson. Bronson was Mrs. Cartwright’s first husband and a planter like her second husband. Twenty years earlier, however, Bronson owned one of the best-managed plantations on the island and his friend Cartwright was so down on his luck, he wrote to Bronson asking for a job. Bronson agreed and even invited Cartwright to stay at his home. A year later, Cartwright was still living there when Reggie’s dead body is discovered in the jungle, the victim of a very messy bullet through his head.
The Chinaman
The Chinaman is known precisely as that. He is perhaps the most integral character to the plot, but is a mystery in all other ways. His attempt to pawn the watch that belonged to Reggie Bronson—a watch he claims to have found in the jungle near where the murder took place. The key piece of information is not so much where he found it, but when: the day before, a year after the murder had been committed. From this unexpected piece of information, Gaze returns to the scene of the crime where he discovers the money that Bronson had been carrying and from there he becomes convinced that Cartwright murdered his friend at the urging of the woman who is now his wife.
