Necklace and Calabash: A Chinese Detective Story (Judge Dee Mysteries)

by Robert Van Gulik

  ‘I have reason to assume,’ the judge said quietly, ‘that the Superintendent will give Colonel Kang a great many particulars.’

  Captain Siew turned to the lieutenant.

  ‘What about staging a nice break from prison, eh, Liu?’ When the lieutenant nodded with a pleased grin, Siew continued to Judge Dee, ‘Liu'll also disguise you properly, sir, so that you can leave here now unnoticed. Wouldn't wonder if those fellows had left a few colleagues to watch this building. Liu is a master in make-up !’ Rubbing his hands, he gave the judge a judicious look. ‘We start by trimming your beard and whiskers. Then…’

  ‘I don't want any mummery!’ the judge told him coldly. ‘Can your lieutenant get me an old donkey and a pair of crutches?’

  Liu nodded and went out at once.

  ‘Wonderful fellow, Liu!’ the captain said. ‘Have a cup of tea, sir!’ Then he gave the judge a circumstantial account of how Liu would make it appear that there was a prisoner in one of the cells downstairs, and how he would fake a break from that cell. He went into every detail with boyish delight. When he had finished he asked, ‘What about the murder of that cashier Tai Min, sir?’

  ‘That crime falls under your jurisdiction, Siew, for it was committed right here.’ He told him that Lang had admitted having had Tai Min tortured and killed because the cashier had refused to tell Lang where he had hidden the necklace he had been hired to steal. ‘When you have arrested Lang's men tonight, we shall go to the Kingfisher and arrest Lang himself, and then I shall formally charge him with the crime. But that man Hao I mentioned is far more important than Lang. As soon as Hao has arrived in the godown, I shall whistle twice on my fingers; then you let your men swoop down on them. Hao may have people with him, though. Let me give you a rough idea of the ground.’

  He took a piece of paper and made a sketch of the clearing and the godowns. The captain compared it with his own map, and pointed out where he would post his men. Then Lieutenant Liu came back.

  ‘Donkey is ready in the backyard, sir,’ he announced. ‘You'd better go quickly, for there's nobody watching outside. Not yet.’

  Judge Dee hurriedly thanked the captain. Liu took him down a flight of rickety stairs to a small kitchen yard. While the judge was mounting the ancient donkey, Liu handed him a pair of well-worn crutches.

  ‘Good work!’ he whispered to the lieutenant and rode through the narrow gate.

  Letting his shoulders sag and keeping his head down, he guided his donkey to the street running parallel to the main thoroughfare. He was banking on Master Gourd being such a familiar figure in Rivertown, that people would take him for granted and not look at him too closely. The only obvious difference was that he carried a sword. He quickly unstrapped it, and wedged it in between the crutches across the donkey's rump.

  The donkey walked along sedately, picking its way through the milling crowd. Judge Dee noted with satisfaction that no one gave him a second look. Now and then someone called out a greeting, to which he replied by raising his hand. He drove his mount in the direction of the Kingfisher, for he didn't want to tempt providence too long, and his inn would be the last place where the agents from the palace would expect him to hide.

  The narrow alley at the back of the Kingfisher was completely deserted. The bustle of the noon meal was just over, the servants were taking a rest and the tradesmen would not be coming till an hour or so before the evening rice. The judge dismounted at the back door and peered inside at the untidy garden. The folding doors of Lang's suite were closed and no sounds came from the kitchen. The window of his own room on the second floor was shuttered, but the one of the room below was half-open. Someone was strumming a moon-guitar, the same melody the judge had heard on his first night there. Now he remembered it. The tune had been popular in the capital many years ago. Having observed the garden for a while, he decided that the old storehouse would serve his purpose. The door stood ajar, and he slipped inside, the crutches and his sword under his arm.

  The shed did not look very inviting. Cobwebs were hanging down from the mouldy rafters, and there was a musty, unpleasant smell. Broken chairs and tables were stacked up against the back wall, but the floor was swept clean. When he had a closer look at the old furniture he discovered behind it a heap of hemp sacks, piled up against the wall.

  He shoved a rickety table out of the way and prodded the sacks with the point of his sword. They contained paddy-husks. He decided they would do as a bed for a few hours. The donkey would doubtless amble back to wherever it had come from. After he had stood the crutches against the wall beside the single, barred window, he rearranged the sacks, then laid himself down on top, close to the wall. With his hands cupped behind his head, he reviewed the latest developments.

  Mr Hao's letter to Lang had been good news indeed. It proved that the plotters in the palace had not yet got the necklace in their hands. Thus he could discard one possibility he had been considering, namely that they or Mr Hao had intercepted the cashier after the theft and bought the necklace directly from the thief. This theory had been based on the fact that the mysterious Mr Hao had failed to turn up the next day at Lang's. Now it was clear that Mr Hao had been detained, exactly as he had stated in his letter to Lang, and he was expecting to conclude the deal tonight, in Lang's godown. This was excellent. For Hao's arrest would make the plotters in the palace pause and ponder for a while, thus giving him, the judge, a breathing space to concentrate on the search for the necklace. The long morning on the river had made him drowsy, and he closed his eyes.

  His sleep was disturbed by many dreams. The distorted face of the bearded assassin again made its appearance; hanging in the air, it was ogling him with its single rolling eye. No, it was the dead cashier who was standing over him, with face green and swollen, bulging eyes fixed on him while mangled hands groped for his throat. The judge wanted to rise, but his entire body felt as heavy as lead, and he could not move. Desperately he gasped for air. Just when he thought he was suffocating, the cashier changed into a tall woman in a soiled blue gown. Long, dishevelled hair clotted with dry mud hung across her face, revealing only the blue, gaping mouth from which protruded a swollen tongue. With a startled cry the judge woke up.

  Drenched with sweat, he got down from his improvised bed and poked about among the old furniture for a while, to get the awful nightmare out of his mind. He cursed under his breath when he stumbled over a few dusty bags. They seemed to have contained flour. He brushed off his knees, then stretched himself out again on the hemp sacks. Now he soon fell into a dreamless sleep.

  XIII

  An irritating, persistent itch in his neck woke Judge Dee. With a start he noticed that the barred window was dark. He swung his legs to the floor and ran to the window. To his relief he heard the cooks chopping meat and singing lustily. Since no orders were being shouted, it must still be well before the hour of the evening rice. Rubbing his itching neck, he found lots of small ants crawling about under his collar. And there were more on his beard and whiskers, and on the front of his robe. Annoyed, he brushed the small insects off as well as he could.

  Now there was light behind the windows of Lang's suite, and one panel of the folding doors stood ajar, but he could hear no voices from within. Two vegetable vendors came into the garden and made straight for the kitchen. Judge Dee waited till they had left again with their empty baskets, then he slipped outside and went to the gate in the garden wall. To his surprise the donkey was still there. It stood close to the wall, nuzzling among the garbage. He quickly went back to the storehouse and grabbed the crutches. Feeling safe in his disguise, he rode to the quay.

  A mixed crowd was about under the smoking oil-lamps of the foodstalls in front of the fish-market and there was a hubbub of shrill voices. Judge Dee had to halt when a cartload of melons toppled over in front of his donkey. Bystanders came rushing on to help the vendor collect his merchandise. A shabbily dressed man grabbed the rein of his donkey. ‘I'll get you through, Master Gourd !’ he called out cheerfully.
As the coolie was shoving people away, the judge suddenly heard someone whisper behind him:

  ‘They are after him, but he has disappeared.’

  Quickly the judge turned round in the saddle. In the uncertain light he only saw the laughing faces of a few youngsters who were pushing his donkey on from behind. The next moment he was clear of the tumult.

  Judge Dee rode on with a puzzled frown. The fight in the go-down had proved beyond all doubt that the old man was on his side. Yet the whispered remark, addressed to him by someone who must have mistaken him for Master Gourd, seemed to mean that the Taoist was kept informed about his movements. What could be the old monk's connection with this baffling case? Again he tried to remember where he could have met him before. In vain.

  A thin evening mist came drifting in from the river. Now that he was approaching the far end of the quay where there were no shops or street stalls, everything looked dark and desolate. The only points of light came from the bow lamps of the moored craft that were bobbing up and down in the black water.

  When the judge had passed the first godown in the row, he dismounted and placed his crutches against the wall. Then he walked on to the tall trees that marked the clearing at the opposite end, his sword on his back. Just as he was passing underneath some dark branches, a hoarse voice spoke directly above his head:

  ‘You're late. But Hao hasn't arrived yet.’

  Looking up, he vaguely saw the huge shape of one of Lang's bodyguards, perched on a thick branch. Yes, Mr Lang did indeed know his routine work. The judge crossed the clearing and knocked on the door. The bullet-headed man opened it at once. ‘Glad you came!’ he muttered. ‘The place is giving me the creeps!’

  ‘Afraid of Tai Min's ghost?’ the judge asked coldly. He pushed the bench up to the wall and sat down.

  ‘Not me!’ The accountant seated himself by Judge Dee's side. ‘Squealed like a pig, you know! A pity the stupid bastards let him die before they had really started.’ A cruel smile twisted his thick lips. ‘They had fixed him to this very bench, you see. First they…’

  ‘I am not interested in your little games.’ The judge laid his sword across his knees and leaned back against the wall. ‘You can tell me what you got out of him, though.’

  ‘Practically nothing. When the men burned his feet, he shouted a hundred times that he didn't have the pearls. Thereafter he did some more squealing about it being no use going on because he just didn't have them. He died cursing us, the impudent scoundrel. The stupid idiots slit his belly open, to see whether he had swallowed the pearls. Nothing doing, of course.’ Looking at Judge Dee's sword, he added nervously, ‘That sword might make Mr Hao suspicious. Are you sure you shouldn't put it away out of sight somewhere?’

  ‘Very sure.’

  The judge folded his arms and let his chin sink on his breast. He tried to think of nothing, but the many problems he was facing kept bothering him. From now on he would have to concentrate on the dead cashier. For even if Mr Hao proved to know exactly who the plotters in the palace were, he, the judge, could take no official action against them until he had found the necklace. The Princess had especially stressed that point. Again he wondered what Tai Min had had in mind when he decided to cheat Lang. Somehow or other he had the feeling that a talk with Mrs Wei, the absconding wife, would provide a clue to what Tai Min had done with the necklace. ‘Sit still!’ he snapped at the accountant who was fidgeting in his seat. The only information he possessed regarding Mrs Wei had been supplied by Fern. An uncommonly intelligent girl, but still a girl, and one who had lived with the Weis only a few months. He doubted whether he could trust her favourable judgement of the innkeeper's wife. Fern had stated that Mrs Wei had not committed adultery with the cashier, and Wei was an unpleasant old codger. Yet it was scandalous behaviour for a housewife to leave her husband without one word of explanation. Wei had mentioned a vagrant bully as his wife's lover. That was also a point he would have to look into. He ought to have had a longer talk with Wei, but events had been moving so quickly that… ‘What are you muttering about?’ he peevishly asked the man beside him.

  ‘Just that I am getting worried about Hao. We've been waiting here for nearly an hour now, you know! Why should he make this appointment if he doesn't mean to keep it?’

  The judge shrugged.

  ‘Why, you say? Well, he was probably detained by some unexpected…’ Suddenly he broke off. Then he hit his fist on his knee. ‘Holy Heaven, I should've thought of that! Of all the…’

  ‘What… why…’ the other stuttered.

  ‘I am just as big a fathead as you!’ Judge Dee said bitterly. ‘The appointment was a dirty trick, of course!’

  Ignoring the accountant's frightened questions, he jumped up, rushed outside and blew hard on his fingers twice. The whistle sounded shrilly all over the silent clearing. The door of the next godown was opened a few inches, and a bearded face peered cautiously outside. Then loud commands and the clatter of arms came from the pine forest. A big dark shape fell down from the tree opposite. Two soldiers caught the bodyguard. He put up a fight but was felled by a blow on the head from the flat of a sword. All at once the clearing was crowded with guardsmen, armed to the teeth. As two began to break down the door of the second godown with their battle-axes, Captain Siew came running to the judge, followed by Lieutenant Liu.

  ‘We saw no one pass here after you,’ the captain said. ‘The thin fellow behind you is Mr Hao, I suppose?’

  ‘No, he isn't. But he is responsible for the torturing and the killing of the cashier. Have him arrested at once ! Hao didn't turn up. Where are your horses? We must get to the Kingfisher as fast as we can !’

  The captain barked an order at Liu, then ran towards the forest, Judge Dee close behind him. ‘How many men do we need?’ Siew called out over his shoulder. ‘Four ‘ll do!’ the judge replied, panting.

  Beyond the second bend of the forest path six cavalrymen were guarding a few dozen richly caparisoned horses. Judge Dee and the captain took two and swung themselves into the saddle. As he drove his horse on, the captain shouted at four men to follow them.

  In the clearing the soldiers were lining up Lang's men and chaining them together. The stolid Lieutenant Liu was personally tying up the bullet-headed man with a long thin cord. Passing by him, Judge Dee called out:

  ‘Don't forget the donkey! It's waiting at the end of the row!’

  Then the six horsemen rode on to the quay at a gallop.

  XIV

  Mr Wei was standing behind the counter in the semi-dark hall, drinking a cup of tea with two guests. He stared bewildered at Judge Dee and the guardsmen, the cup arrested halfway to his lips.

  ‘Did any visitors come for Mr Lang?’ the judge rasped.

  The innkeeper shook his head, dumbfounded.

  The judge ran into the corridor leading to Lang's suite. The door of the ante-room was not locked, but the one giving access to Lang's study appeared bolted on the inside. Captain Siew knocked hard on it with the hilt of his sword. When there was no answer he threw his iron-clad shoulder against it and it burst open. He halted so abruptly that the judge bumped into him. No one was there, but the room had been thoroughly ransacked. The desk had been overturned, all its drawers pulled out. The floor was strewn with scattered papers. Here and there the wainscoting had been pried loose; in front of the window lay a heap of clothes, torn to shreds. Suddenly Judge Dee grabbed the captain's arm and pointed at the farthest corner. Siew uttered an awful curse.

  The stark-naked body of Lang was hanging upside down from the rafter. The big toes of his bare feet were fastened to it with a thin cord; his arms were bound behind his back. A bloodstained rag was wound tightly round his head which just cleared the floor.

  The judge ran towards him, bent down and loosened the rag. At once blood trickled onto the floor. Quickly he felt Lang's breast. It was still warm, but the heart had ceased beating. He turned to the captain, his face chalk-white.

  ‘Too late. Tell your men to take
him down and then off to the mortuary.’

  With unsteady steps Judge Dee went over to the desk, righted the armchair and sat down. Lang had been a callous criminal who had fully deserved to be beheaded on the scaffold, but not to be tortured to death in this beastly manner. And he, the judge, was responsible for this outrage. The subdued voice of the captain roused him from his sombre thoughts.

  ‘Two of my men are searching the garden and questioning the servants, sir.’

  Judge Dee pointed at the open panel of the garden doors. ‘I don't think anyone'll have seen the intruders, Siew,’ he said wearily. They slipped inside through there. Entered by the back gate, when the cooks were busy preparing the evening rice. ‘That's why they set six as the time for the meeting. The meeting was a ruse, meant to get all Lang's men away from him, so that he could be questioned alone. I made a big mistake, Siew. A very big mistake.’

  Slowly caressing his long black beard, he reflected that the scheme accorded well with the tortuous mind of depraved courtiers, past masters in double-dealing and deceit. They must have a spy among Lang's men, who had duly informed them that the cashier had not delivered the necklace. Therefore they had not sent Mr Hao to collect it. On second thoughts, however, they had reached the conclusion that Tai Min must have handed the necklace to Lang when he had returned to the inn to pack, and that Lang had let him go with the promise of a much bigger reward than agreed upon. And that Lang then had let his men kill the cashier, thus saving for himself their share in the loot, and all further trouble from the cashier. Convinced that Lang had hidden the necklace somewhere in his study, the plotters in the palace had arranged the meeting in the godown, so as “to be able to surprise him here in the inn. ‘What did you say, Siew?’

  ‘I asked whether you think the bastards found what they came for, sir.’

  ‘They did not. It wasn't there.’