‘Is it Ko Chih-yuan?’ he asked.
When Pan nodded, his face contorted in speechless horror, the judge closed the box. He threw the shovel on the floor, then went over to the window and pushed it wide open. He set his cap right and wiped the sweat from his face.
‘When your men get here,’ he said to Pan, ‘let them dig out the clothes-box and bring it to the tribunal as it is, with the corpse inside. Also order a closed palankeen. The matron will sit inside with Mrs Ko, and convey her to the tribunal to be locked up in a cell. Report everything to Magistrate Teng, and tell him that I am on my way to try to find and apprehend Kun-shan. If he isn't the murderer, he can at any rate give us valuable information. The magistrate had been planning to leave tomorrow morning for the Prefecture on urgent business, but after these new developments I think he'd better hear Mrs Ko first, during the morning session. If I succeed in catching Kun-shan, I trust we'll be able to close this case during that session, and then proceed to Pien-foo. I'll be off now. When you are back at the tribunal you'd better draw up a report concerning our discovery of the body. Tomorrow I'll sign it, as a witness.’
He took leave of Pan Yoo-te and told the maid to conduct him to the gate.
In the street it was still hot, but he thought that anything was better than the foul atmosphere in the room he had just left. A strenuous uphill walk took him to the centre of the town. He felt hot and tired when he entered the alley of the Phoenix Inn.
Sounds of singing and laughter were coming through the window. The judge was pleased that everyone was still up and about, for now he could ask them for more information about Kun-shan. The waiter opened the door, looking more sour than ever. Apparently he had a dislike for late hours.
XIV
The taproom was lighted by half a dozen smoking candles; it presented a lively scene. Gambling was in full swing, the foursome had been reinforced by Chiao Tai and the Student, who lustily joined in the rhyming chorus when a particularly good combination was thrown. The Corporal sat in the rattan chair with Carnation on his knee, one arm round her waist and the other beating the time of the ribald song she was singing. When he saw the judge, he shouted:
‘Hey thief-catcher, did you catch your man?’
‘I didn't find the fellow, let alone catch him!’ Judge Dee said sourly.
‘The wench here says you caught her all right, though!’ the Corporal said with a broad grin. ‘From now on we shall call each other cousin, hey? All the same family!’ He pushed the girl from his lap and got up. Slapping her behind he shouted: ‘Now you'll show me what new tricks the beard taught you!’
They went laughing to the stairs.
Judge Dee sat down at the table near the window. Chiao Tai had risen and fetched two wine beakers from the counter. As he seated himself the judge asked eagerly:
‘Did Kun-shan turn up?’
‘Hasn't been near here!’ Chiao Tai replied.
Judge Dee set his beaker down hard on the table. He said peevishly:
‘I should have followed your advice! I made a bad mistake letting that fellow go! I can't understand why he hasn't turned up. He is clever enough, he must realize that, now that the tribunal has arrested Leng, they may issue a proclamation that all his possessions'll be confiscated, and that the gold shop then won't honour the drafts any more.’ He called over to the gamblers: ‘Hey there, do any of you know where I can find Kun-shan?’
The bald man looked round and shook his head.
‘I don't think he has a fixed place to stay, brother, and if he has we never heard of it. He sleeps curled up under a stone, together with the other worms, I suppose!’
The gamblers guffawed.
‘Has the scoundrel done more dirty things?’ Chiao Tai asked.
‘Perhaps a murder,’ Judge Dee replied. Then he told Chiao Tai in a low voice what had happened at the Ko residence.
By the time he had finished, the four gamblers had settled accounts and were drifting towards the staircase. The Student went out. The waiter came up to Judge Dee's table and asked whether they would be needing him. When they said no, he disappeared behind the counter.
‘Does that fellow sleep there?’ Judge Dee asked, astonished.
‘Certainly!’ Chiao Tai said with a grin. ‘He just fits into the second shelf. As regards Kun-shan now, much to my regret I must say that he couldn't have murdered old Ko, because he never could have managed that dive into the river. I've seen it. The current is very swift, jagged rocks stick out of the water everywhere, and there are plenty of nasty whirlpools. The man who dives into it, swims downstream and then comes out alive must not only know the river as well as the palm of his hand and have superior skill in swimming, but he must also have considerable strength and power of endurance. No, Magistrate, you can take my word for it—Kun-shan could never have done that.’
‘In that case,’ Judge Dee said, ‘Kun-shan must have had an accomplice who jumped into the river. The scheme of the faked suicide itself bears the hallmark of Kun-shan's evil, tortuous mind. And, since he stole Leng Chien's notebook, he must have been there when the murder was committed. Tomorrow I'll tell Pan Yoo-te to send his best men out to arrest the scoundrel. He won't have left the city, not without the money or without trying to do us some dirty trick!’
‘Talking about an accomplice,’ Chiao Tai said slowly, ‘when I visited Mrs Ko she told me that she had been expecting someone else, but that he hadn't turned up. Since I thought she was a courtesan, I took it that she referred to another customer. But it was probably her lover, and that man might be Kun-shan's helper! Heaven, that reminds me! She also said that she would be leaving town shortly!’
‘She won't!’ the judge remarked dryly. ‘I had her put in jail, for she showed clearly that she knew about the murder. Tomorrow I'll ask Magistrate Teng to appoint me his temporary Assessor, so that I can take part in the questioning of Mrs Ko. Then, when the session is over, I shall accompany Teng on a trip to Pien-foo.’ He told Chiao Tai about the two visits of the painter and his paramour to the house of assignation, about the mysterious person who had spied on them, and about his final conclusion that the woman had not been Mrs Teng at all. ‘Therefore,’ he said, ‘I am glad that I made good progress with Ko Chih-yuan's case, I feel I owe that to the magistrate. Well, what did you find out this afternoon?’
‘My job was easy. I left here after I had my little nap. That unpleasant youngster, the Student, insisted on accompanying me part of the way. He told me, very confidentially, about some big coup he is planning, all by himself, and which would net him two hundred gold pieces!’
‘Not in two hundred years!’ Judge Dee said. ‘On our way to the marsh he dished out a similar tale to me. What did they say at headquarters about our kind host?’
‘As usual,’ Chiao Tai replied with a grin, ‘I had to run around a bit before I found the right man. The officer in charge of personnel said that the files on deserters were with the military police, and the military police said that personnel had them. At last a clever sergeant took me apart and warned me that if I were going to wait for that file I'd have to wait till my hair had turned grey. But he knew that Captain Mao of the military police had served in the Third Wing of the Western Army too, and he thought that he might remember the case. Well, this Captain Mao is a nephew of Colonel Mao, of the fort in Peng-lai. He has the fiercest moustache I've ever seen in my life, but he proved to be a very likeable fellow notwithstanding, and he remembered our Corporal quite well. Mao said he had been an excellent soldier, several times commended for bravery in battle, and worshipped by his men. Thereafter, however, there came a new commanding officer, a certain Captain Woo, a crook who kept part of the soldiers' pay for himself. When a soldier protested, Woo ordered the Corporal to give him hundred lashes with the bowstring. The Corporal refused, and when Woo started beating him, the Corporal, he knocked Woo down. Since beating an officer is, of course, a capital offence, the Corporal took to his heels. Later it was discovered that Woo had accepted bribes from a
secret agent of the barbarians, and he was beheaded. Captain Mao told me that if our Corporal had managed to stay out of mischief after his desertion, they would in this special case make an exception and forget about his offence. The army now needs good men like him, and if the magistrate recommends him, he'll be re-enlisted and promoted to sergeant. That's all.’
‘I am glad to hear that’ Judge Dee said. ‘The Corporal is a rough-and-ready rascal, but he has his heart in the right place. I'll see what I can do for him. Now, what about that soothsayer?’
‘There can't be the slightest doubt that he is genuine. He's a dignified old man, very serious about his work. He had known Ko Chih-yuan for a long time, and liked him. He said old Ko was a bit nervous and fussy about small things, but a good and kind man, always ready to help others. I described Kun-shan to him, but he had never seen him. Then I asked the old gentleman to have a squint at my future too! He looked at my hand and said I would die by the sword. I told him that nothing would suit me better! But he didn't like that, for, as I said already, he's dead serious about his forecasts.’
‘Well, that settles that!’ the judge said. ‘I reckoned with the possibility that someone who wished to harm Ko had bribed the soothsayer to indicate the fifteenth as a dangerous day, so as to be able to lay his plans beforehand. Now we'd better be off to bed, for we'll have to be at the tribunal early. This is our last night here in the Phoenix Inn, Chiao Tai. Tomorrow I'll have to give up my incognito. We'll stay in the guest quarters of the tribunal for the rest of my leave. ‘
Chiao Tai took the candle, and they went upstairs.
They found their small bedroom even hotter and closer than the night before. Judge Dee would have opened the window, but the myriad tiny thuds resounding from outside against the dirty oil-paper reminded him that clouds of winged insects were waiting for the assault. With a sigh he lay down on the hard couch, pulling his robe close so as to be protected somewhat against the other hordes that presently would come crawling from the crevices among the planks. Chiao Tai again stretched himself out on the floor, his head close to the door.
Judge Dee turned and tossed on the plank-bed, but sleep would not come. Soon he found that the air had become suffocating. Since, now that he had doused the candle, there seemed to be fewer flying insects attacking the window, he decided to open it. But he pulled and pushed in vain; it had become stuck in its frame. He took the hair-needle out of his top-knot, and, with its sharp point, cut the oil-paper from the square window panes. A slight breeze came in, together with the cool rays of the moon, and he felt somewhat relieved. He again lay down on the plank-bed, and put his neck-cloth over his face to protect himself against the mosquitoes. After a while his fatigue asserted itself, and he fell asleep.
Except for the rhythmic snoring, the Phoenix Inn was still.
XV
Chiao Tai woke up with a start. There was a strange, pungent smell in his nose. The year of city life as Judge Dee's assistant had not yet dulled the alertness of his senses, acquired during the years he had lived in the ‘green woods’. He sneezed, and immediately thought of a fire, and of the fact that the inn consisted of boards. He jumped up, grabbed Judge Dee's foot and threw himself against the door, all in one and the same moment. The door burst open and he tumbled into the narrow passage outside, dragging the judge with him. He collided in the dark with a queer, slippery shape. He grabbed at it but missed. There was the sound of someone falling down the staircase. Something clattered on the wooden stairs, then there came suppressed groans from down below. Chiao Tai began to cough. He shouted:
‘Get up! There's a fire!’ And, to the judge : ‘Downstairs, quick!’
Bedlam followed. While cursing, half-naked men came crowding into the passage, Chiao Tai and the judge let themselves slide down the stairs. Below, Chiao Tai stumbled over a human body, scrambled up again, ran to the door and kicked it wide open. He took a deep breath, then he went coughing and sneezing to the counter, groped for a tinder-box and lit a candle. Judge Dee rushed outside into the street too. He was dizzy and nauseated, but after he had sneezed a couple of times he felt better. He looked up at the second storey, but all was dark there. The place was not on fire, but he thought he knew what had happened. When he went inside again the waiter had emerged with tousled head from behind the counter and was lighting more candles.
Their light shone on a weird scene. The Corporal, stark naked and looking like a huge, hairy ape, stood with the bald man over a queer, whimpering figure, sitting on the floor and nursing its left leg. Its naked body was glistening with oil The three gamblers, scantily dressed, were looking dazedly at each other with watering eyes. Carnation, clutching a small loin cloth round her naked body, stared with horrified eyes at the groaning man on the floor. Judge Dee, who, with Chiao Tai, was the only person fully dressed, stooped and picked up a bamboo blowpipe about two feet long, which had a small gourd attached to its end. He hurriedly examined it, then he barked at Kun-shan:
‘What poison did you blow into our room?’
‘It was no poison, only a sleeping drug!’ Kun-shan whined. ‘It was nothing, I didn't want to hurt any of you! I have broken my ankle!’
The Corporal gave him a vicious kick in the ribs.
‘I'll break every bone in your body!’ he growled. ‘What do you mean by sneaking in here, you son of a dog?’
‘He wanted to rob me,’ Judge Dee said. He looked at Chiao Tai, who was searching a pile of clothes that lay next to the door. ‘You can close the door,’ he called out to him, ‘the particles of powder this rascal blew into the room have dispersed by now’ And, to the Corporal: ‘Look, the bastard undressed down here and oiled his body so that he could wriggle out of the hands of anyone trying to catch him. He planned to flee after he had stolen what he could!’
‘That makes it simple,’ the Corporal said. ‘I am against killings but, as the rule says that a man who steals from his comrades shall die, we'll finish him off. But you go ahead and question him. You have the first claim!’
He gave a sign to his men. They grabbed Kun-shan, and pinned him spread-eagled to the floor, standing on his hands and feet. Kun-shan screamed when the bald man planted a foot on his broken ankle, but the Corporal started to kick him again.
Judge Dee raised his hand. He stared curiously at the prone man. His horribly emaciated body was covered with long, evil looking scars that seemed to have been caused by burns. Chiao Tai came up to the judge and handed him two packages he had found in Kun-shan's clothes. Judge Dee gave the heavy one back to Chiao Tai, and opened the other. It contained a water-stained notebook. ‘Where did you steal this?’ he asked the man on the floor.
‘I found it!’ Kun-shan screamed.
‘Tell the truth!’ Judge Dee barked.
‘It is the truth!’
‘Get a shovel of burning coal and a pair of fire-tongs from the kitchen!’ the Corporal snapped at the waiter. ‘We'll just lay a few of those hot coals on this bastard's belly. That's always a good start. It'll smell a bit, but you can't have everything.’
‘No! Don't burn me!’ Kun-shan shouted frantically. ‘I found it, I swear it!’
‘Where?’ the judge asked.
‘Here! The other night, I came here and searched all the rooms upstairs while you were sleeping. I found it behind that woman's bed!’
Judge Dee quickly looked at Carnation. Clutching her naked breast, she suppressed a cry. Seeing the frantic entreaty in her eyes, in a flash he understood. He said hurriedly to the Corporal:
‘It's no use, the bastard is lying. I and my mate'd better take him to a quiet spot and have a leisurely talk with him. If we do it here he may become a bit noisy, and there's no need to tell the whole neighbourhood about this. We'll take him out to the marsh.’
‘No, no!’ Kun-shan wailed. The Corporal silenced him with a kick. He snarled:
‘The dirty dogshead! Slandering our girl too, eh?’
‘It's true!’ Kun-shan shouted. ‘I tell you that I tore out a few pages, then
put it back. When I came here tonight, I——’
Judge Dee had quickly taken off his felt slipper and rammed the point in Kun-shan's open mouth. ‘Presently I'll let you gossip all you want!’ he said. He showed the Corporal Kun-shan's blowpipe. ‘The powder is in this gourd,’ he remarked. ‘I assume that if you blow it through the crack under the door into a room, it disperses and drugs people. But luck was against the scoundrel. My mate slept on the floor with his head close to the door, and got the full dose of the powder in his face. He sneezed it out, and before it could start to spread he had already burst open the door and we were outside. I had cut out the window paper before I went to sleep, and the breeze took care of the rest. Otherwise all of us would have been sound asleep by now, and me and my mate with our throats slit from ear to ear. Hey you, I suppose you jammed my window, didn't you?’
Kun-shan nodded. Gagging he moved his distended jaws, trying to get rid of the slipper.
‘Let your men paste an oil-plaster over his mouth,’ the judge said to the Corporal. ‘Then, if they make a stretcher of two poles, we'll roll him up in an old blanket, and carry him away. If we meet the nightwatch, we'll say he is suffering from a contagious disease and that we are taking him to a doctor.’
The Lacquer Screen: A Chinese Detective Story (Judge Dee Mystery) Page 13