He turned over on his back and put her limp body between his legs, keeping her mouth and nose clear of the surface by cupping his left hand under her chin. His feet got caught in a new mass of waterweeds, but he succeeded in freeing himself. He swam with the current, heading for a tree that overhung the bank beyond Hoo’s garden.
‘Hefty wench!’ he grunted as he clambered on land with his burden. He felt about with his foot till he found a clear space among the shrubs where there was long grass. There he stretched her out face down and began to move her arms vigorously. He had to do it all by feeling, for here among the tall shrubs it was pitch dark. She brought up a great deal of water, and he realized with immense relief that she was still alive. When he put his hand on her face he felt her eyelids flutter, and her lips moved. He quickly turned her over on her back. Kneeling by her side he began to massage her cold, stiff limbs. He was panting heavily, and he did not know whether the moisture that gushed down his face and shoulders was canal water or his own sweat,
Suddenly he heard her whisper:
‘Keep your hands off me!’
‘Shut up!’ he gasped. Then, realizing that she could hardly have recognized him, he added more gently: ‘I am the soldier who helped you clean your sleeve in the tavern, remember? I had been talking there with your father.’
He thought he heard a faint chuckle.
‘You fell flat on your face,’ she murmured.
‘So I did,’ Ma Joong said sourly. ‘Planned to help you, but you can take care of yourself. Except tonight. How did you get into the canal?’
Rubbing her thighs he noticed with admiration how firm the solid muscles were.
‘I am feeling rotten,’ she said softly. ‘Tell me first how you happened to discover me. It’s hours past midnight already.’
‘Well, we are supposed to kind of make the rounds, you see, at night. I was standing on the bridge over there, and spotted you. My name is Ma Joong, by the way.’
‘Lucky you saw me. Thank you, Mr Ma.’
‘It was all in the day’s work. Now, what about you? I don’t suppose Mr Hoo chucked you over his balcony, eh?’
‘Very funny indeed! As a matter of fact Mr Hoo didn’t chuck me over the balcony. I jumped.’
‘Jumped? From the bridge?’
She heaved a sigh.
‘Since you saved me from drowning, I ought to tell you, I suppose. Well, to cut a long story short, my father used to work for that man Hoo. He left Hoo’s service years ago, I never knew why. Hoo told me to come to his house tonight because he had discovered something about my father, he said, something he thought I ought to know. Like a fool I went there. I found out that the dirty rat is a lecher. You can stop rubbing me now, by the way. I am feeling fine. Well, we were all alone in the library up there, and he wanted to have me. We had a kind of wrestling bout. I know a thing or two about the game, but the scoundrel is an old hand, and strong as an ox. Finally, when my jacket and skirt were in tatters I was able to place a kick in his stomach that made him reel back. I ran to the balcony and jumped into the river. I am not a bad swimmer, but I hadn’t reckoned with those damned weeds.’
‘The son of a dog!’ Ma Joong exploded. As soon as you are feeling all right, we’ll pay him a courtesy call, and I’ll beat a full confession out of him.’
Suddenly he felt her hand on his breast.
‘Don’t do that, please!’ she said urgently. ‘He could ruin my father, you know.’ Then she added in a bitter voice: ‘Besides, there were no witnesses. Who would believe my word against that of an important man like Hoo?’
‘I!’ he said promptly. ‘Anywhere, any time.’
He felt her arms round his neck. She pulled his head down and kissed him full on his mouth, pressing her bare bosom against his broad chest. He folded her in his muscular arms.
There was none of the hesitant exploration that marks a first embrace. The complete darkness allowed unreserved yielding to passion, yet created an infinite tenderness. When at last he lay down in the grass, one arm still round her shoulders, the other on her heaving bosom, he thought exultantly that he had never before possessed a more delightful woman. They remained lying there side by side for a long time. Ma Joong wished this could last for ever.
Her first words, however, dampened his elated mood.
‘It had to happen anyway sooner or later,’ she said casually. ‘Besides, on an eventful night like this, one more accident doesn’t matter.’
He was so taken aback that he didn’t know what to say. Suddenly she resumed:
‘Now, what about clothes? Those mosquitoes are the meanest creatures.’
‘I’ll go and have a look at Hoo’s backyard,’ he muttered.
‘That damned darkness!’ he grumbled as he made his way through the shrubs. ‘Wish I could’ve seen her face! Was it her idea of a joke, or did it really mean absolutely nothing to her? Ow!’ The stubbly ground and sharp stones were hurting his bare feet.
He climbed over the wooden garden fence, and found a washing line with a few pieces of clothing the servants had apparently forgotten to take inside. He took a patched jacket and a pair of blue trousers.
Handing her the jacket, he said:
‘I don’t know whether it’ll fit you, but it has nice long sleeves for putting those iron thingummies in. Didn’t you have them with you tonight?’
‘No. I told you I was a fool, didn’t I? Thought that a man like Hoo had enough women available to last him for the rest of his life. Didn’t you get any shoes?’
‘I’ll carry you to the place where I left mine.’
Disregarding her protests he took her in his arms and walked off. She was not exactly a light burden, but her cheek against his was adequate compensation for his labour. He set her down by the side of the road, then went to retrieve his belongings. He still had the woodman’s instinct acquired during his long years in the ‘green forest’, so that he found the spot without difficulty. After he had rejoined her, he tore his neckcloth in two, and stuffed the pieces in his shoes,
‘Here,’ he said. ‘You won’t skip about in those like a young doe, but they’ll at least protect your dainty feet. Where do you live?’
‘Not too far from here, in the quarter behind the Taoist Temple.’
After that they walked along, in a rather awkward silence. Ma Joong looked askance at her a few times, but he could not distinguish her face in the dim light, and he hesitated to reopen the conversation. When they had left the Half-moon Bridge behind them, however, he began diffidently:
‘I’d like to meet you again, you know. Perhaps in…’
She halted in her steps. Her arms akimbo, she gave him a scornful look.
‘If you think this is the beginning of an easy and cheap love affair, Mister Colonel, I must disillusion you. You saved my life, and I paid cash. That’s all there is to it, understand?’
While Ma Joong, deeply hurt, was groping for an answer, she went on bitterly:
‘My father is right. All of you high-ups think that every woman of the common people is fair game. Don’t your wife and concubines keep you sufficiently busy, my friend?’
‘I am not married!’ Ma Joong exclaimed, indignant.
‘You are lying, of course. As if a man of your rank wouldn’t have established a family years ago!’
‘I haven’t. I shan’t pretend that I have been exactly idle in that line all those years, but I didn’t marry. There are a few wenches around who kindly hold my hand when I’m feeling lonely, but I keep no regular mistress. Never met the right girl, I suppose.’
‘That’s what they all say,’ she remarked coldly.
‘Well, have it your own way then,’ Ma Joong said wearily. ‘Let’s walk on. I have other work to do tonight besides seeing stray girls home.’
‘Yes, Mister Colonel.’
‘Don’t keep harping on my rank, you stupid wench!’ he burst out. ‘I don’t belong to the upper set that produces nothing but colonels and generals. I am the son of a boatman and damn
ed proud of it too. I am from Foo-ling, a small fishing village in Kiangsu. Means nothing of course to a silly stuck-up city miss like you.’ He shrugged, and lapsed into a moody silence. When she said nothing, and made no move to walk on, he pensively scratched his chin and resumed:
‘My father was a damned fine fellow. Carried a bale of rice under each arm like a sack of feathers. But the boat was all we had, and when my father died I had to sell it to pay my debts.’
He fell silent. After a while she said quietly:
‘I know all about being in debt. What did you do then?’
He looked up, startled from his thoughts.
‘Well, I had always done a lot of boxing and fencing, you see, so the local magistrate hired me as his bodyguard. He paid well, but he was a mean bastard. Did a dirty trick to a widow once, and I knocked him down. A beauty, straight to his jaw!’ He grinned, then gave her a sour look and continued gruffly: ‘Hitting a magistrate being a capital offence, I fled and took to the ‘‘green woods". Became a highwayman, in case you don’t know.’
‘I do know. Being a highwayman, how could you become a colonel of the Imperial guards?’
‘Because I met my present boss, who happens to be the greatest gentleman alive. He made me his lieutenant, and I have served him the last fifteen years. My career, my rank, everything I owe to him.’
She gave him a thoughtful look.
‘Are you really from Foo-ling?’ she asked, in the local dialect.
‘I’ll be damned!’ Ma Joong shouted. ‘You don’t mean to say you are from there?’
‘My mother was, originally. She was a sweet woman, but she died some years ago.’ She was silent for a while, then added: ‘My father belongs to the “old people".’
‘He tripped me up, but I think he’s a nice fellow nevertheless. Bit of a grumbler, though.’
‘He is a great artist,’ she said earnestly. ‘There was a terrible tragedy in his life, and that has made him bitter.’
They walked on. Soon the green-tiled roof of the Taoist Temple loomed up in front of them. The large paper lanterns hanging from the eaves of the gatehouse were still burning.
She laid her hand on his arm.
‘Here we’ll say good-bye. My father must not know anything about my visit to Hoo, mind you. I’ll tell him that I fell into the canal accidentally.’
Now that he could see her face clearly by the light of the large lanterns, he thought he discerned in her eyes a soft glint that gave him new courage.
‘I’d be very glad if we could meet again,’ he said. ‘Not because of you know what, but just to get to know each other better. Couldn’t we get together, somewhere?’
She patted her wet hair.
‘Well, if you care to come to the Tavern of the Five Blessings, say tomorrow at noon, I’ll try to be there, and we can have a bowl of noodles together. As an acrobat I am considered a social outcast, which has the advantage that I can show myself in public with any man I like. If you don’t mind being seen with me, that is.’
‘What do you take me for? I’ll be there,. . Miss Acrobat!’
XIII
Early in the morning, just after daybreak, Judge Dee walked out on the marble terrace, still clad in his night-robe. One look at the thick, impenetrable wall of yellow fog that surrounded the terrace on all three sides sufficed. This same fog had greeted him every morning for the last three weeks. It meant that there was no breeze, no change of weather and hence no chance of rain. The stricken city was facing one more suffocating day, in a hot, pestilence-laden air.
He went back inside, and pulled the terrace door shut behind him. It was hot in the large, low-ceilinged room, but he had to keep the unhealthy fog outside. Normally this room, located on the top storey of the Governor’s palace, was used as banquet hall for smaller parties in summer, when the guests could enjoy the evening cool out on the marble terrace. After the emergency had been declared, and the Grand Council assigned the palace of the Metropolitan Governor to Judge Dee, the judge had decided to make this room his private headquarters. He had the four banquet tables arranged so as to form a square, and placed his own writing-desk in its centre. On the first table were put all dossiers and documents relating to the routine city administration, on the second those concerning the emergency measures, on the next the papers of the High Court, while the fourth table was littered with files and folders on the food supply. Thus he had all these documents within easy reach when he sat working at his desk.
Against the back wall stood a couch and a tea table with four chairs, in the corner a simple washstand. Judge Dee had lived, eaten, slept and worked here, ever since he had sent his three wives and his children to the mountain villa of one of his friends and locked up his own official residence, to the south of the Imperial palace.
It was from this room that he directed the administration of the city which the Emperor had personally entrusted to him, three weeks before. Then the Emperor, the Court, the Cabinet and all national government organizations had moved to the Imperial Camp in the cool mountain plain, thirty miles from the capital. There a temporary city of tents and barracks had been constructed, and this was now the administrative centre of the huge Chinese empire. The capital, its teeming population reduced to two-thirds of the normal figure, had become an island, as it were, isolated by the Black Death that walked its streets. It was left to Judge Dee to see this city of fear through the present emergency.
In Judge Dee’s improvised headquarters scores of clerks and orderlies maintained liaison between him and the more important branches of the city government he had installed in the palace. The military administration, headed jointly by Ma Joong and Chiao Tai, was located on the third floor below; the archives, assigned to Tao Gan, on the second floor, while the Municipal Chancery took up the entire ground floor of the palace, as in normal times.
An orderly came in and placed a bowl of rice and a platter of salted fish and vegetables on the tea table. Judge Dee sat down. But after he had lifted his chopsticks he realized that he had no appetite at all. He had been drafting official documents and proclamations with Tao Gan till long after midnight. The two hours of sleep thereafter had been disturbed by bad dreams, a fitful slumber that had left him more tired than before. His throat was sore, and he greedily drank the cup of strong, hot tea. While he was sipping his second cup, Chiao Tai came in. After he had wished the judge a good morning, he poured himself a cup too, and said:
‘Everything was quiet uptown, sir. There was only one major crime, just about an hour ago. A sordid affair. Four scavengers who had been called to the house of a captain who had died of the plague, violated the widow and her two daughters. Fortunately their cries attracted the attention of a patrol that was passing by, and the scoundrels were arrested. In accordance with your instructions, sir, I had the military police take them at once to the square of the communal pyre, where most of the scavengers gather. There they were beheaded, with black hoods and all.’
Judge Dee nodded.
‘I trust this will serve as a warning. How many of those scavengers are there at present?’
‘About three thousand are registered with the municipality, sir. Numbered identification tags are issued to them, and on showing those they are paid their salary every week. It must be feared, however, that many scoundrels joined their ranks, just by putting on a black cloak and hood; not for the salary, but for pilfering and committing other offences unpunished,’
The judge set down his teacup hard.
‘We need inspectors to check them,’ he said. ‘But no one likes to go near those men, and with our shortage of manpower…’
The door opened and Ma Joong came in, followed by Tao Can.
‘I have news about Hoo, sir!’ Ma Joong announced with a happy grin. He sat down and told the judge about his night’s adventure.
‘Astonishing story!’ Judge Dee exclaimed. ‘Evidently it was she wham Hoo was expecting when you, Tao Gan, and I paid him our surprise visit last night.’ He gave Ma Joong
a keen look and asked: ‘Are you quite sure her story was on the level?’
‘You don’t think she jumped stark naked into the canal for a nice healthy swim, sir?’ Ma Joong asked indignantly.
‘Hardly that,’ the judge admitted. He thought for a moment or two, then resumed: ‘That girl must tell us more about Hoo’s relations with her father. Do you know where to find them?’
Ma Joong looked embarrassed.
‘Somewhere behind the Taoist temple, sir. But I shall meet her at noon, tomorrow.’
Judge Dee shot him a shrewd look. ‘I see,’ he said. ‘Well, after that meeting you bring her here. Together with her father. In any case, we have now a definite charge against Hoo, namely the capital one of attempted rape. And that comes in very handy.’ He went over to his desk and selected an official form. He filled it out rapidly with his red writing-brush. Impressing the large red seal of the High Court on it, he told his three lieutenants: ‘With Hoo safely under lock and key, we shall collect more evidence about Yee’s murderer.’ He clapped his hands.
He gave the warrant to the orderly who came in, and said:
‘Hand this to a captain of the guard at once, and tell him to effect the arrest with four men. Hoo may put up resistance, but I want him alive, and with a whole skin, mind you!’
The orderly saluted smartly. Rushing out, he nearly collided with the senior scribe, who told the judge:
‘A Mr Fang asks for an audience, my lord. He belongs to the, ah…Special Services of the municipality.’
The Willow Pattern: A Judge Dee Mystery (Judge Dee Mystery Series) Page 8