The Mammoth Book of Historical Whodunnits Volume 1 (The Mammoth Book Series)

by Mike Ashley

  “Of course,” his First replied over her shoulder. “But first I want to see for myself whether there’s any real damage. For heaven’s sake, take a look at this red robe, dear!” she went on to Miss Tsao. “The mould has absolutely eaten into the fabric! And you always say this dress looks so well on me!”

  Judge Dee rose abruptly. The smell of perfume and stale cosmetics mingling with the faint odour of damp clothes gave the hot room an atmosphere of overwhelming femininity that suddenly jarred on his taut nerves. “I’m just going out for a short walk,” he said.

  “Before you’ve even had your morning tea?” his First exclaimed. But her eyes were on the discoloured patches on the red dress in her hands.

  “I’ll be back for breakfast,” the judge muttered. “Give me that blue robe over there!” Miss Tsao helped the Second put the robe over his shoulders and asked solicitously: “Isn’t that dress a bit too heavy for this hot weather?”

  “It’s dry at least,” he said curtly. At the same time he realized with dismay that Miss Tsao was perfectly right: the thick fabric clung to his moist back like a coat of mail. He mumbled a greeting and went downstairs.

  He quickly walked down the semi-dark corridor leading to the small back door of the tribunal compound. He was glad his old friend and adviser Sergeant Hoong had not yet appeared. The sergeant knew him so well that he would sense at once that he was in a bad temper, and he would wonder what it was all about.

  The judge opened the back door with his private key and slipped out into the wet, deserted street. What was it all about, really? he asked himself as he walked along through the dripping mist. Well, these seven months on his first independent official post had been disappointing, of course. The first few days had been exciting, and then there had been the murder of Mrs. Ho, and the case at the fort. But thereafter there had been nothing but dreary office routine: forms to be filled out, papers to be filed, licences to be issued . . . In the capital he had also had much paperwork to do, but on important papers. Moreover, this district was not really his. The entire region from the river north was a strategic area, under the jurisdiction of the army. And the Korean quarter outside the East Gate had its own administration. He angrily kicked a stone, then cursed. What had looked like a loose boulder was in fact the top of a cobblestone, and he hurt his toe badly. He must take a decision about Miss Tsao. The night before, in the intimacy of their shared couch, his First Lady had again urged him to take Miss Tsao as his Third. She and his Second were fond of her, she had said, and Miss Tsao herself wanted nothing better. “Besides,” his First had added with her customary frankness, “your Second is a fine woman but she hasn’t had a higher education, and to have an intelligent, well-read girl like Miss Tsao around would make life much more interesting for all concerned.” But what if Miss Tsao’s willingness was motivated only by gratitude to him for getting her out of the terrible trouble she had been in? In a way it would be easier if he didn’t like her so much. On the other hand, would it then be fair to marry a woman one didn’t really like? As a magistrate he was entitled to as many as four wives, but personally he held the view that two wives ought to be sufficient unless both of them proved barren. It was all very difficult and confusing. He pulled his robe closer round him, for it had begun to rain.

  He sighed with relief when he saw the broad steps leading up to the Temple of Confucius. The third floor of the west tower had been converted into a small tea-house. He would have his morning tea there, then walk back to the tribunal.

  In the low-ceilinged, octagonal room a slovenly-dressed waiter was leaning on the counter, stirring the fire of the small tea-stove with iron tongs. Judge Dee noticed with satisfaction that the youngster didn’t recognize him, for he was not in the mood to acknowledge bowing and scraping. He ordered a pot of tea and a dry towel and sat down at the bamboo table in front of the counter.

  The waiter handed him a none-too-clean towel in a bamboo basket. “Just one moment please, sir. The water’ll be boiling soon.” As the judge rubbed his long beard dry with the towel, the waiter went on, “Since you are up and about so early, sir, you’ll have heard already about the trouble out there.” He pointed with his thumb at the open window, and as the judge shook his head, he continued with relish, “Last night a fellow was hacked to pieces in the old watchtower, out there in the marsh.”

  Judge Dee quickly put the towel down. “A murder? How do you know?”

  “The grocery boy told me, sir. Came up here to deliver his stuff while I was scrubbing the floor. At dawn he had gone to the watchtower to collect duck eggs from that half-witted girl who lives up there, and he saw the mess. The girl was sitting crying in a corner. Rushing back to town, he warned the military police at the blockhouse, and the captain went to the old tower with a few of his men. Look, there they are!”

  Judge Dee got up and went to the window. From this vantage-point he could see beyond the crenellated top of the city wall the vast green expanse of the marshlands overgrown with reeds, and further on to the north, in the misty distance, the grey water of the river. A hardened road went from the quay north of the city straight to the lonely tower of weather-beaten bricks in the middle of the marsh. A few soldiers with spiked helmets came marching down the road to the blockhouse halfway between the tower and the quay.

  “Was the murdered man a soldier?” the judge asked quickly. Although the area north of the city came under the jurisdiction of the army, any crime involving civilians there had to be referred to the tribunal.

  “Could be. That half-witted girl is deaf and dumb, but not too bad-looking. Could be a soldier went up the tower for a private conversation with her, if you get what I mean. Ha, the water is boiling!”

  Judge Dee strained his eyes. Now two military policemen were riding from the blockhouse to the city, their horses splashing through the water that had submerged part of the raised road.

  “Here’s your tea, sir! Be careful, the cup is very hot. I’ll put it here on the sill for you. No, come to think of it, the murdered man was no soldier. The grocery boy said he was an old merchant living near the North Gate – he knew him by sight. Well, the military police will catch the murderer soon enough. Plenty tough, they are!” He nudged the judge excitedly. “There you are! Didn’t I tell you they’re tough? See that fellow in chains they’re dragging from the blockhouse? He’s wearing a fisherman’s brown jacket and trousers. Well, they’ll take him to the fort now, and . . .”

  “They’ll do nothing of the sort!” the judge interrupted angrily. He hastily took a sip from the tea and scalded his mouth. He paid and rushed downstairs. A civilian murdered by another civilian, that was clearly a case for the tribunal! This was a splendid occasion to tell the military exactly where they got off! Once and for all.

  All his apathy had dropped away from him. He rented a horse from the blacksmith on the corner, jumped into the saddle and rode to the North Gate. The guards cast an astonished look at the dishevelled horseman with the wet house-cap sagging on his head. But then they recognized their magistrate and sprang to attention. The judge dismounted and motioned the corporal to follow him into the guardhouse beside the gate. “What is all this commotion out on the marsh?” he asked.

  “A man was found murdered in the old tower, sir. The military police have arrested the murderer already; they are questioning him now in the blockhouse. I expect they’ll come down to the quay presently.”

  Judge Dee sat down on the bamboo bench and handed the corporal a few coppers. “Tell one of your men to buy me two oilcakes!”

  The oilcakes came fresh from the griddle of a street vendor and had an appetizing smell of garlic and onions, but the judge did not enjoy them, hungry though he was. The hot tea had burnt his tongue, and his mind was concerned with the abuse of power by the army authorities. He reflected ruefully that in the capital one didn’t have such annoying problems to cope with: there, detailed rules fixed the exact extent of the authority of every official, high or low. As he was finishing his oilcakes, th
e corporal came in.

  “The military police have now taken the prisoner to their watchpost on the quay, sir.”

  Judge Dee sprang up. “Follow me with four men!”

  On the river quay a slight breeze was dispersing the mist. The judge’s robe clung wetly to his shoulders. “Exactly the kind of weather for catching a bad cold,” he muttered. A heavily armed sentry ushered him into the bare waiting-room of the watchpost.

  In the back a tall man wearing the coat of mail and spiked helmet of the military police was sitting behind a roughly made wooden desk. He was filling out an official form with laborious, slow strokes of his writing-brush.

  “I am Magistrate Dee,” the judge began. “I demand to know . . .” He suddenly broke off. The captain had looked up. His face was marked by a terrible white scar running along his left cheek and across his mouth. His misshapen lips were half-concealed by a ragged moustache. Before the judge had recovered from this shock, the captain had risen. He saluted smartly and said in a clipped voice:

  “Glad you came, sir. I have just finished my report to you.” Pointing at the stretcher covered with a blanket on the floor in the corner, he added, “That’s the dead body, and the murderer is in the back room there. You want him taken directly to the jail of the tribunal, I suppose?”

  “Yes. Certainly,” Judge Dee replied, rather lamely.

  “Good.” The captain folded the sheet he had been writing on and handed it to the judge. “Sit down, sir. If you have a moment to spare, I’d like to tell you myself about the case.”

  Judge Dee took the seat by the desk and motioned the captain to sit down too. Stroking his long beard, he said to himself that all this was turning out quite differently from what he had expected.

  “Well,” the captain began, “I know the marshland as well as the palm of my hand. That deaf-mute girl who lives in the tower is a harmless idiot, so when it was reported that a murdered man was lying up in her room, I thought at once of assault and robbery, and sent my men to search the marshland between the tower and the riverbank.”

  “Why especially that area?” the judge interrupted. “It could just as well have happened on the road, couldn’t it? The murderer hiding the dead body later in the tower?”

  “No, sir. Our blockhouse is located on the road halfway between the quay here and the old tower. From there my men keep an eye on the road all day long, as per orders. To prevent Korean spies from entering or leaving the city, you see. And they patrol that road at night. That road is the only means of crossing the marsh, by the way. It’s tricky country, and anyone trying to cross it would risk getting into a swamp or quicksand and would drown. Now my men found the body was still warm, and we concluded he was killed a few hours before dawn. Since no one passed the blockhouse except the grocery boy, it follows that both the murdered man and the criminal came from the north. A pathway leads through the reeds from the tower to the riverbank, and a fellow familiar with the layout could slip by there without my men in the blockhouse spotting him.” The captain stroked his moustache and added, “If he had succeeded in getting by our river patrols, that is.”

  “And your men caught the murderer by the waterside?”

  “Yes, sir. They discovered a young fisherman, Wang San-lang his name is, hiding in his small boat among the rushes, directly north of the tower. He was trying to wash his trousers which were stained with blood. When my men hailed him, he pushed off and tried to paddle his boat into midstream. The archers shot a few string arrows into the hull, and before he knew where he was he was being hauled back to shore, boat and all. He disclaimed all knowledge of any dead man in the tower, maintained he was on his way there to bring the deaf-mute girl a large carp, and that he got the blood on his trousers while cleaning that carp. He was waiting for dawn to visit her. We searched him, and we found this in his belt.”

  The captain unwrapped a small paper package on his desk and showed the judge three shining silver pieces. “We identified the corpse by the visiting-cards we found on it.” He shook the contents of a large envelope out on the table. Besides a package of cards there were two keys, some small change, and a pawn-ticket. Pointing at the ticket, the captain continued, “That scrap of paper was lying on the floor, close to the body. Must have dropped out of his jacket. The murdered man is the pawnbroker Choong, the owner of a large and well-known pawnshop, just inside the North Gate. A wealthy man. His hobby is fishing. My theory is that Choong met Wang somewhere on the quay last night and hired him to take him out in his boat for a night of fishing on the river. When they had got to the deserted area north of the tower, Wang lured the old man there under some pretext or other and killed him. He had planned to hide the body somewhere in the tower – the thing is half in ruins, you know, and the girl uses only the second storey – but she woke up and caught him in the act. So he just took the silver and left. This is only a theory, mind you, for the girl is worthless as a witness. My men tried to get something out of her, but she only scribbled down some incoherent nonsense about rain spirits and black goblins. Then she had a fit, began to laugh and to cry at the same time. A poor, harmless half-wit.” He rose, walked over to the stretcher and lifted the blanket. “Here’s the dead body.”

  Judge Dee bent over the lean shape, which was clad in a simple brown robe. The breast showed patches of clotted blood, and the sleeves were covered with dried mud. The face had a peaceful look, but it was very ugly: lantern-shaped, with a beaked nose that was slightly askew, and a thin-lipped, too large mouth. The head with its long, greying hair was bare.

  “Not a very handsome gentleman,” the captain remarked. “Though I should be the last to pass such a remark!” A spasm contorted his mutilated face. He raised the body’s shoulders and showed the judge the large red stain on the back. “Killed by a knife thrust from behind that must have penetrated right into his heart. He was lying on his back on the floor, just inside the door of the girl’s room.” The captain let the upper part of the body drop. “Nasty fellow, that fisherman. After he had murdered Choong, he began to cut up his breast and belly. I say after he had killed him, for as you see those wounds in front haven’t bled as much as one would expect. Oh yes, here’s my last exhibit! Had nearly forgotten it!” He pulled out a drawer in the desk and unwrapped the oiled paper of an oblong package. Handing the judge a long thin knife, he said, “This was found in Wang’s boat, sir. He says he uses it for cleaning his fish. There was no trace of blood on it. Why should there be? There was plenty of water around to wash it clean after he had got back to the boat! Well, that’s about all, sir. I expect that Wang’ll confess readily enough. I know that type of young hoodlum. They begin by stoutly denying everything, but after a thorough interrogation they break down and then they talk their mouths off. What are your orders, sir?”

  “First I must inform the next of kin, and have them formally identify the body. Therefore, I . . .”

  “I’ve attended to that, sir. Choong was a widower, and his two sons are living in the capital. The body was officially identified just now by Mr. Lin, the dead man’s partner, who lived together with him.”

  “You and your men did an excellent job,” the judge said. “Tell your men to transfer the prisoner and the dead body to the guards I brought with me.” Rising, he added, “I am really most grateful for your swift and efficient action, captain. This being a civilian case, you only needed to report the murder to the tribunal and you could have left it at that. You went out of your way to help me and . . .”

  The captain raised his hand in a deprecatory gesture and said in his strange dull voice, “It was a pleasure, sir. I happen to be one of Colonel Meng’s men. We shall always do all we can to help you. All of us, always.”

  The spasm that distorted his misshapen face had to be a smile. Judge Dee walked back to the guardhouse at the North Gate. He had decided to question the prisoner there at once, then go to the scene of the crime. If he transferred the investigation to the tribunal, clues might get stale. It seemed a fairly straightforwa
rd case, but one never knew.

  He sat down at the only table in the bare guardroom and settled down to a study of the captain’s report. It contained little beyond what the captain had already told him. The victim’s full name was Choong Fang, age fifty-six; the girl was called Oriole, twenty years of age, and the young fisherman was twenty-two. He took the visiting-cards and the pawn-ticket from his sleeve. The cards stated that Mr. Choong was a native of Shansi Province. The pawn-ticket was a tally, stamped with the large red stamp of Choong’s pawnshop; it concerned four brocade robes pawned the day before by a Mrs. Pei for three silver pieces, to be redeemed in three months at a monthly interest of 5 per cent.

  The corporal came in, followed by two guards carrying the stretcher.

  “Put it down there in the corner,” Judge Dee ordered. “Do you know about that deaf-mute girl who lives in the watchtower? The military police gave only her personal name – Oriole.”

  “Yes, sir, that’s what she is called. She’s an abandoned child. An old crone who used to sell fruit near the gate here brought her up and taught her to write a few dozen letters and a bit of sign language. When the old woman died two years ago, the girl went to live in the tower because the street urchins were always pestering her. She raises ducks there, and sells the eggs. People called her Oriole to make fun of her being dumb, and the nickname stuck.”

  “All right. Bring the prisoner before me.”

  The guards came back flanking a squat, sturdily built youngster. His tousled hair hung down over the corrugated brow of his swarthy, scowling face, and his brown jacket and trousers were clumsily patched in several places. His hands were chained behind his back, an extra loop of the thin chain encircling his thick, bare neck. The guards pressed him down on his knees in front of the judge.

  Judge Dee observed the youngster in silence for a while, wondering what would be the best way to start the interrogation. There was only the patter of the rain outside, and the prisoner’s heavy breathing. The judge took the three silver pieces from his sleeve.