by Ian Morson
‘The old man is the village elder I spoke to. He says that Doctor Sun has returned. With the body of the farmer he went to heal. It would seem our good doctor’s skills have not improved at all. The funeral rites will take place tomorrow, but the dead man’s brother is on the rampage. He wants the hide of the doctor and he–‘ Tadeusz pointed at the village elder – ‘is fearful that Sun is about to abscond. If we want him, we had better take him right away.’
I spurred on my horse and followed Tadeusz into the village, leaving the old man to follow in our wake. Tadeusz led me through the village to a grubby shack on the other side. Riding through, I thought it was not the neatest settlement I had ever encountered. But by comparison with the doctor’s hovel ahead of us, the other huts were positive palaces. As we dismounted, a lanky man in a blue robe that had seen better days came to the door of the hut. I should have said doorway, because the opening was not graced with any means of shutting out the world other than a piece of sacking. One look at us must have convinced the man that we were either relatives of the man he had just failed to cure, or representatives of a legal system he had spent his life evading. He ducked back behind the sacking with a low moan emanating from his throat. On terra firma again, I pushed past Tadeusz, and ripped the sacking away. The doctor, if it was indeed he, was trying to squeeze through a gap in the timbers in the rear of the one-room hut. His robe had snagged on a splinter, though, and he was stuck. He moaned louder, and yanked at the cloth, creating another tear to join the many that afflicted the once opulent blue gown. He began to wriggle through the split in the wall, but it was too late. The satchel over his shoulder had now jammed in the gap, and I grabbed him by his long, plaited hair.
‘Doctor Sun, I think you will be safer with me than with the brother of your last patient. Come.’
I dragged him by his hair back through the hole in the wall and out of the hut through the open doorway. Then I slung him across my saddle. Tadeusz and I remounted, just as a burly, bandy-legged peasant came bowling down the dusty street towards us. He cried out on seeing the doctor. He must have been the bereaved brother of Sun’s latest victim. But he was too late to use the large club he held, with which, no doubt, he had planned to teach the doctor something about broken bones. We rode off with the doctor unceremoniously draped over my horse before he could begin his lesson.
Once free of the village and any possible pursuit, the doctor begged to be allowed to remount my horse in the more usual fashion.
‘My stomach aches from being bounced up and down on this nag, and my bag is digging into my shoulder,’ he moaned.
I reined in the steed, and he slid unceremoniously to the ground in a heap. Sitting on the packed earth of the roadway, he began to rifle through the contents of his satchel. One by one he produced small packets and pots from the pouch and stood them on the roadside. He muttered their names as he did so, first finding some twigs and roots.
‘Ahhh. It is safe – my guishi, rougui, jiang.’
Then out came some leaves.
‘Renshen, dang gui, ma-huang.’ He looked up at me. ‘I can treat fifty-two ailments using these and others. My methods involve the Four Natures of yin and yang – cold, cool, warm and hot. It is important to have an internal balance, you see. Then there are the Five Tastes. These are pungent, sweet, sour, bitter, salty – each with its own functions. Sweet-tasting herbs help harmonize bodily systems, and drain dampness. Do you have any ailments that require treatment?’
I quietly cursed letting him off my horse, and indicated he should remount. But he held up his hand.
‘Just a moment. There is one more item.’
He thrust his hand into his satchel, and felt anxiously around. But his final trawl in the bag was not as successful as before. He produced a broken clay pot and groaned as he examined the interior.
‘My precious zhusha compound! It is almost all gone.’
He clutched his head, and rocked back and forth on the ground like a lost child. I circled him on my horse, and kicked his head with my boot.
‘Get up now, or I will have you over the horse’s back for the whole journey to Pianfu.’
Doctor Sun scrabbled around in the earth for his medicines and crammed them back into his satchel. He then stared fearfully up at me.
‘Pianfu? Who are you? Why are you taking me to Pianfu? I don’t want to go back there.’
He turned on his heels, and marched off back along the track. Tadeusz made as if to cut him off, but I held up my hand to stop him. Instead, I just called after Sun.
‘Go that way if you like. But it will only take you back to the arms of the dead man’s brother. And they looked like pretty hefty arms to me.’
Sun stopped in his tracks and cast a furtive glance around him. As we had stopped in the rocky gorge that led to the village, there was no escape route to either side. It was sheer, and the rocks were crumbling. With a deep sigh, the doctor turned and walked reluctantly back to me. He stuck out an arm and I lifted his skinny frame with ease on to the horse’s back behind me. We continued our journey with Sun clutching me around the waist and lecturing me on immortality.
‘Waidan, or outer alchemy, necessitates a belief in natural elements being able to change into others. I can perform it using an elixir made up of substances found outside the body, and the preparation involves observing rules about seclusion and purification. Once prepared, the elixir is ingested and brings about physical changes in the body, separate from the soul. I…’
I interrupted him before he drove me mad.
‘If you don’t keep quiet, I will bring about physical changes in your body that you will not find pleasant.’
The rest of our journey was accomplished in blessed silence.
It was early afternoon before we reached Pianfu again. Riding two-up had slowed us down, and anyway I preferred to enter the city as dusk fell. I did not want anyone associated with the prefect to see us. Doctor Sun was our man, and until I had a chance to question him properly, I did not want Li interfering. So rather than ride through the centre of the city, Tadeusz and I skirted round the edge of the place. That made us even later, and it was almost dark as we dismounted. Po Ku took care of the horses, and I dragged the doctor into the courtyard. Lin and Gurbesu emerged from their respective quarters, having heard our arrival. Sun immediately threw himself on the ground at the feet of his fellow Chinee.
‘Master, I beg you to save me from these demons. Look at them. One has only half a face, and the other has fire coming out of his head.’
Lin merely stared down with curiosity at the grovelling supplicant.
‘The men you describe are my esteemed companions, and agents of the Great Khan. He would not take kindly to your description of them. And nor do I.’ He looked up at me. ‘Investigator Zuliani, take this person to my rooms. We will interrogate him there. Bring the bastinado cane.’
Sun had no way of knowing both my and Lin’s dislike of torture, and whimpered at the very threat of corporal punishment.
‘Please master, don’t beat me. I will tell you all you want to know.’
‘I know you will. And it will be very painful as you do so.’
I laughed inwardly at Lin’s ferocious demeanour, knowing it to be feigned. Playing along, I grabbed Sun by his arm and frogmarched him to Lin’s quarters. Tadeusz, meanwhile, plucked from the ground a stick Po Ku used to beat the dust from the matting in Lin’s rooms, and waved it menacingly. Gurbesu ambled back to her room, leaving the boys to their silly games.
Inside the gloomy room, lit only by one lamp that cast large and scary shadows on the walls, Sun fell once again to his knees. He clutched his satchel to him, like some child with a favourite doll, and began to tremble uncontrollably. Lin saw how scared he was and I could tell he was about to relent on his hard man act. He would have reassured the man that we had no intention to do him any harm. But that would have lost us our advantage, and so I thrust myself forward, pushing my face into his.
‘Tell us about
Old Geng. We know he died from aconite poisoning. Was it you who killed him?
Sun gasped, and grasped my wrists in a vice-like grip.
‘Please sir, no sir. Yes, I knew Geng Biao. He was one of my patients. But I did not kill him.’
I stared into his eyes, offering him a chance.
‘Hmmm. Not deliberately, perhaps. Though I have heard your skills at healing are not the best in the world. Many have died who should have lived because of your feeble efforts. But we are not interested in them and your unfortunate record of medical care. I want to know about the deliberate murder of Geng.’
‘Sir. I admit I sometimes fail to help those who come to me. It is unfortunate as you say, but I am often confronted with the hopeless cases of people who should have come to me sooner. Can I help it if they expire before my medicines can take effect? If their lungs have been stricken with influenza, even menthol, which is pungent and cool, may not be sufficient to purge the cold. But Geng’s death is another matter altogether. I swear he did not die by my hand. All I did was sell some aconite to be used as a medicine. How can I help it if it was administered in too large a dose?’
‘Who did you sell it to?’
Sun looked almost too scared to say. But when he saw Tadeusz swish the heavy stick through the air, he broke down. With a cry, he gave us the truth.
‘I sold it to his son, Wenbo. He bought three times what he needed for one dose. I told him it was dangerous. It was he who must have killed his father with it.’
TWENTY-ONE
Once on a tiger’s back, it is hard to alight.
There was nothing else for it – we had to arrest Geng Wenbo. The evidence was now piling up against him. The existence of the incriminating play script in the Geng household could have been said to be circumstantial on its own. And the ‘testimony’ of Nu within it was sketchy to say the least. But put together with Sun’s evidence, it all added up to a very sound case against the boy. It was in fact a much stronger set of facts than those which the prefect had lined up against Jianxu. Of course, Li Wen-Tao would be our major stumbling block, and Lin recognized that.
‘What are we going to do about Li? He will seek to undermine our case when we present it to Taitemir, the Mongol governor.’
I gave a short, barking laugh.
‘Don’t you worry about Li. His authority is compromised totally. I have evidence he has been running an illegal scam involving burglary and payment for the return of the stolen goods.’
Lin looked shocked, his face turning pale.
‘How do you know this?’
‘Because I set up the scam, and then Li took it over. He even used two heavies to beat me up and warn me off.’
Gurbesu gave me a strange look.
‘So that’s why you came home with bruises all over your body that night. But excuse me for stating the obvious. If you set up the scam – which I can well believe – you can’t bring Li down without incriminating yourself. And that smear will stick to Master Lin too. So there’s no point in revealing it.’
I had to admit I felt smug at that point. I smiled sweetly at Gurbesu, who scowled, spoiling her pretty looks.
‘You’ll have to bear with me on this. Just trust me that Li has been neutralized as a force in this city. We can move forward unhindered. So let’s go now and take the boy.’
Lin wasn’t so sure, being as ever the cautious one in our partnership.
‘It’s getting late. Wenbo and Madam Gao may have gone to their beds for the night.’
I rubbed my hands together at the thought.
‘All the better for us. He will be so shocked to be arrested, he might break down on the spot. In fact, let’s rouse the prefect and take him with us. He may hear a confession with his own ears.’
Lin reminded me that we still had the doctor on our hands. We had locked him in a spare room at the top of the house. But the walls were flimsy, and unless we left a guard behind, he might break out and flee. Tadeusz volunteered for the duty.
‘I will redeem myself by keeping an eye on Sun whilst you have the pleasure of taking the real murderer into custody.’
I patted the silversmith on the shoulder.
‘You have no redeeming to do, Tadeusz. However, I will take you up on your offer. It would not go well with us to lose our star witness at this stage. He is such a weasel, I can imagine him sneaking away if he thought we had all gone out together. And we can’t expect Po Ku to take on such an onerous task. We will be back as soon as we can.’
Leaving Tadeusz on guard, Lin, Gurbesu and I marched across the town towards Li’s riverside residence. Flaming torches lit some of the main streets, and pretty, white-faced girls lounged provocatively outside certain establishments. The noise inside, and the girls’ presence on the street, suggested that rowdy taverns and brothels were to be found in Cathay just the same as in Venice or Genoa. In any big city in the West, in fact. I might have dallied, but Gurbesu took a firm hold of my arm, and walked me past the alluring girls. I wasn’t attracted anyway – the white make-up on most of them clearly hid a ravaged skin, and the teeth I saw when one girl smiled were blackened stumps. We hurried on, but Gurbesu had a question for me.
‘What was all that about Tadeusz redeeming himself? He has been behaving very oddly lately. Is there something you are not telling me?’
‘So many questions! But seriously, I think you should ask Tadeusz about it. It is his story to tell, and I think you will find him not unwilling to unburden himself to you. He is in love with you after all.’
Gurbesu snorted in derision at this suggestion of mine. But then she gave me a quizzical look.
‘Are you being serious?’
I nodded solemnly.
‘I will just tell you that Tadeusz was tempted for very good reasons to spy on us all. But he came to Lin and me and told us the truth, and we trust him now as strongly as before.’
I left out the part where we had backed Tadeusz into a corner before he confessed. I would leave it to him to consider the extent of his confession Gurbesu.
Li’s house was all quiet when we reached it. The night porter tried to insist his master had retired to bed and could not be disturbed. But I could see a dim light on in his reception rooms, and was not to be put off. I brushed past the porter, and my companions followed, ignoring the servant’s protests. Through the open doorway, I could see that Li sat at a low table, a look of pleasure on his face. With her back to us and facing him knelt a richly robed girl. She was pouring tea into a bowl set before the prefect. I stepped forward into the room.
‘You will have time for tea later, Master Li. But now, you have an arrest to witness.’
Li’s face fell, his mouth an open wound expressing shock. His cheeks turned bright red and I thought he might explode. The girl, also surprised by our bursting in, turned to look behind her. She had the white-painted face of a lady of pleasure, but beneath it her looks were finer than those of the street whores. I knew from stories told by Lin, that a Chinee’s preferred sexual encounter began with a song and the serving of tea. Unfortunately, Li would not now be able to consummate his drawn out dalliance. I picked up the strange-looking stringed instrument lying at the girl’s feet. It made a noise like a strangled chicken when I thrust it at the girl.
‘I hope he has paid you, miss. Because your services are no longer required.’
She looked me in the eye for a moment, then, seeing I was in earnest, stood and gathered up the hem of her long robe. She left the room quietly on dainty steps. Li, meanwhile, had boiled over. He waved at the harassed servant who had scurried in on our heels, and the man helped Li to his feet. Once he had regained his dignity, Li was all bluster.
‘How dare you enter my house unannounced and order my servants around. The girl is a perfectly respectable entertainer and will be shocked at your innuendo. I shall have to pay her more to placate her now. So leave before I call in my bodyguard.’
I grinned in what I hoped was a wolfish manner.
‘Oh,
please do. If they are the two youths who gave me a few bruises the other day, I want them present to hear what I have to say.’
Li looked at me suspiciously, but sent his servant off to fetch the two bodyguards. Lin, meanwhile, intervened in an attempt to calm the situation down. He cast a quizzical glance at me and then stepped forward.
‘Forgive our abrupt entrance, Master Li, but we have urgent business with you that cannot wait. We have discovered the real murderer of Geng Biao, and perhaps of the actor P’ing-Yang Nu also.’
Li’s little piggy eyes narrowed.
‘I hope you are not going to cast doubt on my judgement, Lin. I care nothing about the death of the actor, which was probably the result of an argument over drink or money. As for the murderer of Geng, she is in jail awaiting execution. It is only the formality of your… investigation that has delayed the matter. I had expected you to confirm my decision.’ He turned his gaze on to me, while still talking to Lin. ‘If not, some unpleasant information about your man, here, may come out.’
I think Li felt very comfortable about accusing me of the confidence trick involving Ho’s thefts and the return of stolen goods by the agency of the priestess in the Temple of the Earth Goddess. He thought my accusing him of being involved would not be believed in the circumstances. And if the situation had been as he imagined, I would have agreed with him. I would sound like a trickster trying to shift the blame. But he was unaware of one thing.
A con is nothing more than a play. Everyone knows it is a play except the victim, until he is stung. But sometimes the con is more convoluted, and involves the victim thinking he has seen the trick. At this point the victim is dragged into joining in the con. This is where the real con starts. Li had willingly joined the stolen goods scam, and had missed the real con. He didn’t know it, but he was still playing a part in my play, even though we were not in a theatre. I addressed those present.