The Emperor's Pearl: A Judge Dee Mystery (Judge Dee Mystery Series)

by Robert Van Gulik

  ‘That’s Number Two, manned by the boatmen of the Canal,’ Judge Dee remarked. ‘They are doing their best!’

  The drummer of Number Two, a small, wiry man, was beating his drum in a frenzy, shouting encouragement at the crew all the time. As the boats came closer, Number Two gained on Nine, its dragon-head now by the side of the other’s tail. The sound of the drums was nearly drowned in the deafening shouts of the spectators.

  Four more boats had appeared round the bend, but no one paid any attention to them, all eyes were glued to Nine and Two. The muscular arms of the rowers of Number Two moved with incredible speed, but they gained no more on Number Nine. The two boats were quite near now, Judge Dee could see the broad grin on the face of the big drummer of Number Nine. Now they were only a hundred yards from the finish. The referees lowered the red flags to mark the finishing-line.

  Suddenly the big drummer of Nine checked his movement. The right club remained raised in the air. He seemed to look at it, astonished, for a moment, then he pitched forward over the drum. The rowers behind him looked up; two paddles clashed. The boat listed and slowed down. Number Nine and Two passed underneath the red flags together, but Number Two was half a boat-length ahead.

  ‘Poor fellow collapsed.’ Judge Dee began.’ They shouldn’t drink so much before…’ His voice was drowned in the deafening applause of the crowd. While Nine and Two were pulling up alongside the quay in front of the grandstand, the other seven dragonboats passed the finish, each greeted by the tremendous applause of the excited spectators. Fireworks started again on all sides.

  The judge saw a large, official barge being rowed across towards their boat. Turning to his ladies he said:

  ‘They are coming to fetch me for the distribution of the prizes. The steward will see you home in our palankeen. I’ll follow as soon as the ceremony is over!’

  His three ladies bowed, and he descended on the lower deck. Pien and Kou were waiting for him at the gangway. As he stepped on board the barge the judge said to the former:

  ‘I am sorry that your boat lost, Dr Pien. I hope that the drummer is not seriously ill.’

  ‘I’ll go and have a look presently, sir. He’s a strong fellow, we’ll revive him all right. It was a fine race!’

  Kou Yuan-liang said nothing, he nervously pulled at his thin moustache. He started to say something, but changed his mind.

  When they had arrived on the quay the headman of the constables, with six of his men, saluted the judge. Pien and Kou led him up the stairs of the grandstand. He was received on the platform by Sergeant Hoong, his faithful old assistant, who conducted him to a small dressing-room made of bamboo screens. As Hoong helped the judge to don his official robe of green brocade, Judge Dee said contentedly:

  ‘It was a most enjoyable outing, Hoong!’ Putting the winged judge’s cap of black velvet on his head, he asked: ‘Nothing happened in the tribunal, I suppose?’

  ‘Only a few routine affairs, Your Honour,’ the greybeard replied. ‘I could let the clerks go home before six. They were very happy, for they could be here just in time to watch the races.’

  ‘Good! While I am addressing the crowd, you had better go down to the quay and find out how that drummer of Boat Nine is doing. The poor wretch collapsed just before his boat reached the finish.’

  Judge Dee stepped out on to the platform.

  A large crowd had assembled down below. The constables had lined up the crews of the dragonboats at the bottom of the stairs. The headman took the leader of each boat up to the platform, where Judge Dee said a few kind words and handed out packages wrapped up in red paper. Each contained a small rice cake and a trifling sum of money.

  Thereafter the judge made a brief speech, wishing all citizens good luck and prosperity during the rest of the year. He re-entered the dressing-room, loudly applauded by the crowd.

  Sergeant Hoong was waiting for him He said worriedly:

  ‘The drummer is dead, sir. Our coroner says that he has been poisoned.’

  III

  Judge Dee looked down silently at the still figure of the dead drummer. The corpse had been brought up to the dressing-room and laid out on a reed mat on the floor. The coroner of the tribunal was squatting beside it. He had been standing among the spectators on the quay watching the finish, and had cursorily examined the body directly after it was brought on land. Now he was conducting a closer examination. He had inserted a silver stave into the mouth.

  Dr Pien, who had been standing in a corner with Kou Yuan-liang, came forward and said in an irritated voice:

  ‘This is a waste of time, Your Honour! I am certain he had a heart attack. All the symptoms point that way.’

  ‘Let my coroner finish!’ Judge Dee spoke curtly. He studied the dead man’s muscular body, stripped to a loin cloth. The face was distorted by the death grimace, but the regular features and the smooth, broad forehead seemed to point to an educated man rather than to a shop assistant or a coolie—the class of people the crews were usually recruited from. As the coroner righted himself, the judge asked him:

  ‘What made you think the man was poisoned? You have heard that Dr Pien believes that he died from a heart-attack.’

  ‘In addition to the symptoms of heart failure, Your Honour, there are small purplish spots on the tips of the fingers and toes, and I verified just now that the tongue is swollen and covered by dark stains. I happen to be from the south, and I know that the mountain people there concoct a slow-working poison that produces exactly those symptoms. As soon as I had seen the spots on his finger-tips, I knew that he must have been killed by that particular poison.’

  Dr Pien bent over the corpse. The coroner opened the mouth wide with the silver stave and let the doctor look inside. Pien nodded. He said contritely to the judge:

  ‘Your coroner is quite right, sir. I was wrong. I now remember having read about that poison. If taken on an empty stomach, it will become effective after a quarter of an hour or so. But if taken after a heavy meal, it may take an hour or more.’

  ‘Since he was the drummer of your boat, I take it that he was an employee of yours? ’

  ‘No, sir, he was a vagrant student; Tong Mai his name was. Occasionally he helped out as a clerk in my pharmacy, in the busy season.’

  ‘Did he have no family here?’

  ‘He did, sir, until a few years ago. He lived with his parents in a rather nice villa, in the countryside. Then his father had bad luck in business and lost all his money. He sold the house and moved back to their native place, up north. Tong Mai stayed behind in Poo-yang, hoping to scrape up enough to keep him going till he had completed his course in Classical Literature in the Temple of Confucius here, then join his parents up north. He was a cheerful, easygoing fellow, and also an excellent sportsman. Good amateur boxer, as a matter of fact. All my employees liked him, that is why they asked him to act as drummer of our boat.’

  He cast a regretful look at the prone figure.

  ‘Tong was quite a useful young man,’ Mr Kou spoke up. ‘His father knew a great deal about antiques, and Tong too had quite an eye for spotting a good thing.’

  ‘How did you come to know him, Mr Kou?’ Judge Dee asked.

  ‘He often came to see me, sir, bringing a piece of porcelain or an old bronze that he had picked up cheaply. I agree with Dr Pien that he was a nice young fellow.’

  ‘That did not prevent somebody from murdering him,‘ the judge remarked dryly. ‘Was there anyone who could have harboured a grudge against him?’

  Dr Pien gave Mr Kou a questioning look. When the latter shrugged his shoulders the doctor replied: ‘Not that we know of, Your Honour. I must add, however, that Tong used to associate with queer people, vagabonds and hangers-on who frequent cheap boxing clubs. Perhaps a quarrel with one of those rascals…’ He did not complete his sentence.

  Pien was looking pale and nervous. Judge Dee reflected that the sudden death of his part-time employee seemed to have shocked him greatly. Or it might have been his wrong diag
nosis that had upset the doctor. He asked Mr Kou: ‘Where did Tong live?’

  ‘Somewhere near Halfmoon Street, sir, in the south-west corner of the city. I don’t know the exact address, but I can ask his friend Sia Kwang. Sia is also a vagrant student, and also an amateur boxer, and he too dabbled in the curio trade as a side line. Sia once told me that he and Tong shared an attic over the shop of an old-clothes merchant. Sia promised to help put away my boat, he must be around somewhere.’

  ‘Have that youngster brought up here!’ Judge Dee told the coroner.

  ‘He has gone back to the city already, sir,’ Dr Pien said quickly. ‘I happened to see him just before I came up here, making for the south gate. Couldn’t miss him, with that ugly scar across his left cheek.’

  ‘That’s a pity,’ Judge Dee remarked. He saw that Kou Yuan-liang seemed eager to go, he was shifting impatiently from one foot to the other. ‘Well, gentlemen,’ he resumed, ‘I shall make careful inquiries into this matter. Do not let it become known that Tong was murdered, for the time being. Call it heart failure. I shall expect both of you at the session of the tribunal tomorrow morning. While you are seeing these two gentlemen down, Hoong, tell our headman to come up here, will you.’

  After Pien and Kou had taken their leave, the judge said to the coroner:

  ‘I am glad to see that you know your job. If you hadn’t happened to be there, I should have dismissed this murder as an accident, on Dr Pien’s authority. You may go back to the tribunal now and draw up your report on the autopsy.’

  The coroner left, smiling contentedly. Judge Dee started to pace the floor, his hands clasped behind his back. When Sergeant Hoong came back with the headman, he ordered the latter: ‘Fetch me the dead man’s clothes!’

  ‘They are right here, sir.’ The headman took a bundle from under the table and opened it. ‘These are the trousers and belt he was wearing, Your Honour, and the pair of felt shoes he had on. And this, here, is his jacket, found folded up under the drum on his boat.’

  Judge Dee put his hand in the capacious sleeve of the jacket and brought out an identity card made out to Tong Mai, a certificate stating that Tong Mai had passed his first literary examination, and two silver pieces wrapped up in tissue-paper. Replacing everything he told Hoong: ‘Take these clothes to the tribunal.’ And, to the headman: ‘Have the body wrapped up in that mat, and let your men bring it to an empty cell in our jail. You yourself go to Tong Mai’s lodging and take Sia Kwang to the tribunal. I’ll question him later tonight.’

  The headman left to call the constables. While Sergeant Hoong was helping the judge to take off his ceremonial robe, he asked:

  ‘Who could have murdered that student? One would think that…’.

  ‘Murder? ’ a deep voice spoke up behind them. ‘I was told it was an accident!’

  The judge turned round with an angry remark on his lips. But he checked himself as he saw the huge man who was standing in the door opening. It was Yang, the curio-dealer who owned a large shop opposite the Temple of Confucius. The judge often went there to look over his antiques. He said, not unkindly:

  ‘It was indeed murder, Mr Yang. But I must request you to keep this to yourself.’

  The giant raised his bushy eyebrows. He had a strongly-featured, sun-tanned face, with a bristling moustache and a short beard. He said, with a slow smile that bared his white, even teeth:

  ‘As you say, sir! I came to have a look because the fishermen down at the quay are saying that the White Woman took him.’

  ‘What do they mean by that? ’ Judge Dee asked testily.

  ‘That’s what the countryfolk call the River Goddess, sir. The fishermen are glad that a man died during the races, they say that, now that the goddess has got her due, there’ll be plenty of fish this year.’

  Judge Dee shrugged his shoulders.

  ‘For the time being we’ll let the murderer think that the authorities share the popular belief,’ he said.

  ‘How was he murdered, Your Honour?’ Yang cast a quick glance at the prone figure, then added: ‘I don’t see any blood.’

  ‘If you want the details, you’ll have to attend the session of the tribunal tomorrow morning,’ Judge Dee said curtly. ‘By the way, since Tong Mai dabbled in the antique trade, I suppose you knew him well?’

  Yang shook his large head.

  ‘Knew of him sir. I never met him. I have my own channels of supply! Got those by hard work, too! Riding up and down the countryside, rain or shine, always after farmers who dig up old stuff in their fields. Keeps me healthy, and well supplied with good, genuine articles. The other day——’

  ‘Ever meet Tong’s friend, fellow called Sia Kwang? ’

  ‘No sir. Sorry I can’t oblige.’ Yang wrinkled his corrugated brow. ‘The name sounds familiar, somehow, but that’s all. Well, as I was saying, the other day I got in a temple east of the city an old painting that Your Honour would be interested in, I dare say. It’s in good condition, I——’

  ‘One of these days I’ll pass by your shop, Mr Yang. I am in rather a hurry now, I must go back to the tribunal.’

  The curio-dealer bowed and took his leave.

  ‘I like to chat with Yang,’ the Judge remarked to Sergeant Hoong. ‘The man has an uncanny knowledge of antiques. Has a genuine love for them, too. But he came at a most inopportune moment.’ He put a small black skull-cap on his head and resumed, with a wan smile: ‘Since my three lieutenants won’t be back in Poo-yang until the day after tomorrow, we’ll have to solve this murder the two of us, Hoong!’

  ‘It’s a pity that Ma Joong and Chiao Tai took Tao Gan along on their holiday, sir!’ the sergeant said wistfully. ‘That sly fellow is just the man for solving a case of poisoning!’

  ‘Don’t worry, we’ll manage, Hoong! I’ll now take a horse and ride to Marble Bridge Village. Evidently the poison was put into Tong Mai’s food or drink while the crews were being entertained there before the races. I shall have a look at things out there. I want you to go to the Temple of Confucius and see the Director of Studies, old Professor Ou-yang. Ask him about Tong Mai, and also about his friend Sia Kwang. The professor is a shrewd old fellow, I’d like to have his opinion on the character of those two young men. You needn’t wait up for me, I’ll see you tomorrow morning after breakfast, in my private office.

  While they were going down the stairs together, the judge added:

  ‘Oh yes, pass by my residence, will you, and let the steward inform my ladies that I shall be in later tonight.’

  IV

  Judge Dee took the horse of one of the constables, swung himself into the saddle and rode off, heading south. The highway was crowded with people from up-country going home, they paid no attention to the solitary horseman galloping by.

  The highway followed the Canal for about one mile. Small groups of men and women were still sitting on the bank, from which they had been watching the races. Then he entered the hills. There dark woods rose on either side of the road. When he had descended into the plain again he saw the coloured lights of the street-stalls that marked the entrance of Marble Bridge Village. Crossing the high curved bridge that had given the village its name, he saw the masts of the large river junks moored at the quay farther along, at the confluence of the river and the Grand Canal.

  The market-place on the other side of the bridge was glittering with hundreds of oil-lamps and lampions. A dense crowd was milling around the stalls. Judge Dee dismounted and led his horse by the bridle to the shop of a blacksmith. The man had little to do, he agreed to look after the horse for a few coppers. The judge noticed with satisfaction that the blacksmith did not recognize him as the magistrate.

  He strolled along, looking for a likely place to gather information. Under the high trees on the river-bank he saw the red-lacquered pillars of a small shrine. He joined the stream of people that filed past it. Each dropped a few coppers in the offering-box that stood at the head of the stone steps leading up to the sanctuary. While contributing his coppers Judge
Dee looked curiously inside. An aged Taoist priest, clad in a tattered brown cowl, was adding new oil to the single lamp that hung over the altar. On it he saw a life-size statue of the River Goddess, sitting cross-legged on her lotus-throne. The half-closed eyes seemed to be looking down on him, her lips were curved in a faint smile.

  As a staunch Confucianist Judge Dee had little patience with the idolatrous popular cults. Yet the beautiful smiling face gave him a strange feeling of disquiet. With an angry shrug he went down the stairs and walked on. A little farther along he saw a barber’s stall. Its open front faced the waterfront. As he entered and sat down on the low tabouret, his eye fell on a slender woman who had detached herself from the crowd and now came walking towards the stall. She wore an outer robe of black damask, and the lower half of her face was covered by a black scarf wound round her head. She could hardly be a prostitute, her quiet attire and her proud bearing clearly indicated a person of standing. While taking off his skull-cap, he vaguely wondered what could have brought an unattended lady to this noisy market at such a late hour. Then he concentrated on detailed instructions to the barber as to how he wanted his beard and whiskers trimmed.

  ‘Where might you be hailing from, sir?’ the barber asked as he began to comb out Judge Dee’s beard.

  ‘I am a boxing-master from the neighbouring district,’ the judge replied. He knew that boxing-masters, their profession compelling them to live in an austere manner, were highly regarded by the people—the kind of persons that invite confidences. He added: ‘I am on my way to the capital to visit my relatives. You must have been doing good business tonight, with all those people about here for the races.’

  ‘Not too good, to tell you the truth! People had better things to think of than having their hair cut, you know. See that large wine-house over on the opposite bank there? Before the boats took off, the Hon’ble Pien and Kou entertained the rowers there, and all their friends and relatives too. Now, I ask you, who is going to spend good coppers on his hair when he can eat a snack and drink his fill, all free for nothing?’