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

by Robert Van Gulik

  Of that Judge Dee was quite sure. Not because he put it beyond Lang to have engaged in such a piece of double-dealing, but because the cashier would in that case certainly have told his torturers that they must take him to their master—hoping that even if he wouldn't be able to bargain with Lang for his life, he would at least gain a little time.

  The judge looked on in silence while the two guardsmen took down the corpse. They laid it on a stretcher, covered it with a sheet of canvas, and carried it away. He felt sick and tired of this insane, utterly frustrating case.

  ‘Oh yes, sir, something nearly slipped my mind! Just when I was assembling my men to go to Lang's godown, my agents from Ten Miles Village, on the other side of the mountains, came back. Mrs Wei wasn't there, sir. And they made sure she hadn't been there either.’

  Judge Dee said nothing. So that theory of his was wrong too. He had tried his best, but all approaches were coming to a dead end. He asked listlessly:

  ‘What did the gentlemen from the palace say about my escape from your prison?’

  ‘They couldn't say very much, sir, because I took them down to the cell you were supposed to be in, and Liu had done a truly magnificent job there. I didn't like their mean look, however. Lang's murder gives me a good reason for posting six men here in the hall, sir. With strict orders to let no outsider in.’

  Judge Dee got up. ‘Excellent,’ he said, ‘I need a good night's sleep.’ Together the two men went back to the hall.

  The judge had not realized that so many guests were staying at the Kingfisher. The hall was crowded with excited people. One guardsman stood at the main entrance, the other was questioning a few frightened servants in the corner. As soon as the guests saw Captain Siew they besieged him with questions. The captain beckoned Wei, who was standing with Fern and the clerk by the counter. He told the innkeeper:

  ‘Intruders murdered Mr Lang Liu, and ransacked his suite.’

  ‘Holy Heaven ! Did they damage my furniture?’

  ‘Go and have a look for yourself!’ the captain told him. As the innkeeper rushed to the corridor, followed by his clerk, Siew addressed the guests: ‘You'd better go back to your rooms, gentlemen ! There's nothing to worry about, I shall have six men on guard here, all through the night.’

  While they were passing the counter Judge Dee told him:

  ‘I'll have a close look at the register. Ought to have done that at once. I don't seem to have done many of the things I ought to have! Well, I'll come to see you early tomorrow morning.’

  ‘You seem to be very friendly with that fresh captain!’ Fern remarked.

  ‘He wanted my opinion on the time of death. Could you give me the inn's register, please?’

  She pulled out the upper drawer and handed him the bulky guest-book. Putting her elbows on the counter, she watched the judge as he leafed through it. The names did not tell him much. Except for Lang and his men, all seemed to be bona-fide merchants, and all had arrived one or more days earlier than Judge Dee. He would leave it to the captain to go into their antecedents.

  ‘I didn't see you all afternoon,’ she resumed, giving his haggard face a curious glance. ‘You look a bit peaked, you know.’

  ‘I am rather tired; I'll go to bed early. Good-night!’

  Up in his room he opened the window wide, then sat down at the table and pulled the padded tea-basket towards him. Slowly sipping his tea, he made a desperate effort to collect his thoughts. He must review the situation in a dispassionate frame of mind: get over his deep shock at the sickening murder of Lang Liu; see all what had happened as a purely intellectual jigsaw puzzle, and try to assign to each component part its logical place. But too many of those parts were missing. If the Princess had not given him explicit orders to remain incognito until he had found the necklace, he would at least have been able to do something, get things moving. Proceed to the palace and institute an official investigation, beginning with the arrest of the two men in grey from the Superintendent's Office who had been after him. They were not pursuing him because he had entered the palace under false pretences, of course, but because they were in the pay of the plotters. And the latter were determined to prevent him from getting the necklace.

  This direct course of action being ruled out, he wondered what alternative there was for him. Time was getting very short. He had only the night and the early morning left, for the Princess would have to leave the Water Palace for the capital at noon. He got up and began to pace the floor restlessly, his hands clasped behind his back.

  The lovely face of the Princess rose before his mind's eye. The Third Princess, His Majesty's favourite daughter, surrounded by dozens of court ladies and scores of maids, protected by the Chief Eunuch and his giant-like sentries… yet alone, with only one lady-in-waiting she could really trust. The Emperor granted her every wish; he had even taken the step, unprecedented in history, of entrusting her with a blank edict appointing an Imperial Inquisitor. So powerful a young woman, yet so utterly lonely and forlorn! He thought of her large, troubled eyes.

  She had given him to understand that the necklace had been stolen in order to alienate the Emperor's feelings from her. But that couldn't have been the real reason. The Emperor was known as a wise, understanding man of balanced judgement, and the loss of the necklace could hardly result in more than a severe scolding. Yet her last words had been that she placed her happiness in his hands!

  He reflected bitterly that his over-confidence had led to him making some bad mistakes. His theory about the murdered cashier planning to join the innkeeper's wife had been completely wrong. What had that youngster been up to then, that night when he went to the Water Palace to steal the necklace?

  Suddenly the judge halted. A slow smile lit up his drawn face. Caressing his sidewhiskers, he realized that it was, after all, possible to take direct action without coming out into the open.

  He quickly opened his saddle-bag and inspected its contents. When he found at the bottom a plain robe of black silk and the long broad black sash belonging to it, he nodded with a satisfied air. It was exactly what he needed. Having taken off his brown travelling-robe, he laid himself down on the bed. He needed a few hours of sleep, but too many thoughts were nagging at his tired brain. After tossing about for a long time he at last dozed off.

  XV

  When Judge Dee woke up, the town had grown silent. He reckoned it was getting on for midnight. The sky was a little overcast, and there were occasional gusts of wind, but he didn't think there would be rain. A quick survey of the neglected garden showed that it was empty. The captain's men must be in the hall, or at the front entrance of the inn.

  He stripped naked and put on a pair of wide black trousers of thin cotton, and over those the long black robe. At one moment he considered transferring the precious yellow document to its collar, then thought better of it. If he failed, the document would be of no use, for it would be found on his dead body. This time it was all or nothing. After all the fumbling in the dark, all the fighting with elusive shadows, at last a concise, clear-cut issue!

  Humming softly, he fastened a leather belt round his waist. The long black sash he tied crosswise round his broad torso, and stuck the sword under it on his back, so that the hilt was over his right shoulder. Then he had a look at the wound on his forearm. It seemed to be healing well, and he covered it with a black plaster. Finally he placed a small black skull-cap on his head.

  In the corridor outside his room everything was quiet. While he was walking to the head of the staircase, however, a creaking floorboard made him halt, alarmed. He listened for a while, but no sound came from the hall below.

  The judge went down, keeping close to the wall. There was no one in the hall, but he heard the guardsmen talking together out on the portico. Remembering that the previous night Mr Wei had left to call the groom by a small back door in his office, he went behind the lattice screen. He unbolted the door, and found himself in the now familiar back garden. Having left by the gate beside the storehouse, h
e walked through the alley to the street that ran parallel with the main thoroughfare. In daytime it was a thriving shopping centre, but now all the shutters were up and it was dead quiet. The judge wished he had a storm lantern, for if clouds obscured the pale moon, it would be pitch dark on the quay.

  Suddenly raucous voices came from a side-street. Judge Dee quickly looked round for a portico to hide in, but the night watch was already round the corner and challenged him. The sergeant lifted his storm-lantern.

  ‘Aha, Doctor Liang! You are out late, Doctor! Anything we can do for you?’

  ‘I was called out for a difficult delivery, near the fish-market.’

  ‘We can't help you there, Doctor!’ the sergeant said. His men guffawed.

  ‘What you can do,’ the judge remarked, ‘is lend me your lantern.’

  ‘You're welcome!’ The soldiers marched off.

  Judge Dee put the lantern out, for he might badly need it later on. When he was getting near to the quay he looked over his shoulder a few times, for he had the uneasy feeling that he was being stared at. But all the windows were shuttered, and he saw nothing move among the shadows between the houses.

  The east end of the quay was shrouded in a grey mist. Letting himself be guided by the oil-lamps of the boats, he reached the waterside. As he was looking over the long row of craft moored there he wondered which boat would be Fern's. They all looked alike in the darkness.

  ‘It's the fifth from the left,’ a small voice spoke behind him.

  The judge swung round, and frowned at the slender black figure. ‘So it's you! Why are you following me?’

  ‘Your own fault, for you kept me awake! My attic is right over your room, you see, and I, too, had planned to make it an early night. First I heard you stamping around, and then you began to toss about on your bed! I couldn't get any sleep, and when you made the floorboard in the corridor creak I thought I'd better follow you and see what you were up to. Quite rightly too, as it turns out, for I certainly don't want to see my boat founder. I am rather fond of it.’

  ‘Listen, Fern, this nonsense must stop! You go back home at once- I know what I am doing.’

  ‘Not in a boat you don't! Where are you bound for?’

  ‘I'm not going far, if you must know. The fourth cove upstream.’

  She sniffed.

  ‘Think you could ever find that, in the dark? Believe me, you can hardly see the mouth even in broad daylight! Very narrow, and clogged with water-weeds. I happen to know that cove, because there are good crabs there. Come along, step inside!’

  The judge hesitated. She was right; it might take him hours to find the cove. If she was prepared to wait where she was, she wouldn't be in any danger, and it would save him no end of trouble.

  ‘I want to have a look around in the forest there. You may have to wait several hours, you know.’

  ‘I can sleep in my boat as comfortably as in my bed. There are tall pine trees all around that cove and I'll moor the boat under the branches. I have a canvas sheet in the boat in case we get rain, but I don't think it'll be more than a few showers.’

  He sat down in the stern. ‘You are really a great help, Fern!’ he said gratefully as she was poling the boat out.

  ‘I like you. And what's more, I trust you. For only heaven knows what you mean by gadding about this time of the night! We won't light the lantern at the bow, anyway.’

  When they were out in the open water, a cloud obscured the moon and it was pitch dark. He realized that without her he would have been utterly lost. She moved the sculling oar in a quick rhythm, but so deftly that the boat sped on with hardly a noise. A sudden chilly gust of wind blew over the water, and he pulled his robe close to his bare breast.

  ‘Here we are!’

  She turned the boat into a narrow inlet, the overhanging branches brushing his shoulders. A dark mass of high trees loomed ahead. She took the pole, and soon he felt the hull scrape against rocks.

  ‘I'll put her alongside this rocky ledge.’ she announced. ‘You can light your lantern now; no one can see us from the river.’

  Judge Dee took his tinderbox from his sleeve and lit the storm-lantern borrowed from the night watch. Now he saw Fern was wearing a black jacket and black trousers, and had a black scarf wound round her hair. With a mischievous glint in her large eyes, she remarked:

  ‘You see I know the proper dress for a nightly escapade! Well, we enjoy complete privacy in this sheltered cove. Just you and me and mother moon. Don't you feel like whispering in my little ear what this is all about?’

  ‘I want to look for something, along the old footpath that crosses the forest. It'll take me at least a couple of hours. If I am not back by three, return to the town alone. I warn you it'll be a long wait.’

  ‘Next thing you'll tell me is that you want to look for medicinal herbs!’ she snapped. ‘Well, don't mind me, mind the snakes. Better light the way well, so as not to step on one. They don't like that.’

  Judge Dee tucked the slips of his long robe under his belt and waded ashore. Taking the lantern in his left hand, he poked about in the dense undergrowth with his sword, looking for a gap.

  ‘The perfect highwayman!’ Fern called out behind him. ‘Good luck!’

  With a wry smile the judge struggled with lanky branches and thorny shrubs, keeping in a north-easterly direction. Sooner than he had expected he came out on a narrow path. To his right it disappeared in a mass of tangled weeds, but to the left it was fairly clear. The judge selected a thick, dead branch and laid it across the path, so as not to miss the spot when he came back. If he came back, rather.

  After he had followed the winding path for a while he noticed that the night wasn't so quiet any more. There was a constant rustling among the thick undergrowth lining the path on either side, alternated with squeaks and growls, and night-birds called out in the dark branches overhead. Now and then sounded the melancholy hooting of an owl. Small animals scuttled away from the light the lantern threw in front of his boots, but he didn't see any snakes. ‘Probably only mentioned them to tease me!’ he muttered with a smile. She was a plucky girl. All at once he halted and stepped back quickly. A spotted snake about five feet long slithered across the path. Plucky, and truthful too, he reflected sourly.

  Walking through the eerie pine forest he soon lost his sense of time. After what he estimated to be about half an hour, the path broadened out somewhat, and there was a glimmer of light among the trees ahead. Then he saw the water, and across it the massive bulk of the north-west watch-tower. It's left corner rose up from the river, a silent mass of water, very black under the overcast sky.

  The footpath bent to the right, running directly south along the west moat of the Water Palace. Going down on his knees, he crept through the row of low trees and shrubs that separated him from the brink of the moat. When he was crouching right on the water's edge, he discovered to his dismay that the moat was much broader than it had looked from midstream that morning. He had estimated it then at about fifteen feet, but actually it was nearer to thirty or forty. The still, dark water a few feet below him looked singularly uninviting, and he could discern no trace of the sluice-door under its opaque surface. Up to now, however, Mr Hao's instructions, which the bullet-headed accountant had reeled off, had proved correct.

  He took a thin, dry branch from the underwood, leaned forward and explored the water. Yes, there was indeed a broad beam there, about three feet under the surface. Suddenly shouted orders came from the battlement of the watch-tower, followed by the clatter of iron boots on stone, very loud in the still night. The judge quickly ducked under the branches. The watch was being relieved, which meant it must be exactly midnight.

  He crept to the brink again, and strained his eyes. Would there in fact be a ledge along the base of the wall? He could distinguish only a narrow, stubbly strip of muddy weeds, just above water level. With a deep sigh he decided he would have to find out for himself.

  Having crept back to the path, he unstrapped the l
ong black sash across his chest and cut it in half on the edge of his sword. He stuffed his skull-cap into his sleeve, and wound the halved sash tightly round his head. Then he took off his black robe, and folded it up neatly. Having wrapped his sword up in the other half of the sash, he placed it on top of his robe together with the lantern, so as to prevent gusts of wind from blowing the robe away. After he had wound his wide trousers tightly about his calves, he tucked the ends into his boots, and tied the straps round his legs. Finally he parted his long beard in two strands, which he threw over his shoulders. Having tied the ends together at the nape of his neck, he worked the tips up under his head-cover.

  When he had crept back to the brink of the moat, he cast a worried look up at the battlements. Mr Hao had said that the archers would ‘be busy elsewhere’ at the time the cashier reached the palace. The plotters had evidently created a diversion for the archers to keep them from watching. Well, he would have to take his chance. He let himself slide slowly down into the water. It wasn't too bad on his feet and legs, but ice-cold on his naked belly and breast. He reflected wryly that Tai Min had doubtless swum under water along the sluice beam. But he didn't feel up to such an acrobatic feat.

  Keeping his eyes and his nose above the water, he groped his way along the slithery beam. His hands met slimy, indefinable objects, and soft, clinging shreds that began to wriggle at his touch. The woodwork of the old sluice door was rotting away and he had to reckon with unexpected gaps. Halfway he suddenly lost his hold. The water bubbled round his head when he went under. He managed to pull himself up again on to the beam, took a deep breath, and continued his course.

  When he had reached the other side he heaved a sigh of relief. Crouching in the water, he explored with his hands the muddy strip along the foot of the wall. The mysterious Mr Hao was probably a repulsive specimen, but the judge appreciated his accuracy. For there was indeed a ledge—covered with foul-smelling silt, overgrown with weeds, but sufficient to supply a foothold. Having cast an anxious look at the protruding battlement twenty feet above him, he slowly rose up out of the water and stepped up on the ledge. With his back and the flat of his outflung hands pressed against the sloping wall, he edged along and round the tower's corner. Now he was facing the river, a glittering expanse of jet-black water.