Judge Dee At Work

by Robert Van Gulik

  Before Judge Dee stepped outside he draped the oiled cloth over his head and shoulders, then jumped into the saddle of his hired horse. He rode along the quay and took the hardened road that led to the marshlands.

  The mist had cleared a little and as he rode along he looked curiously at the deserted, green surface on either side of the road. Narrow gullies followed a winding course through the reeds, here and there broadening into large pools that gleamed dully in the grey light. A flight of small water birds suddenly flew up, with piercing cries that resounded eerily over the desolate marsh. He noticed that the water was subsiding after the torrential rain that had fallen in the night; the road was dry now, but the water had left large patches of duck-weed. When he was about to pass the blockhouse the sentry stopped him, but he let him go on as soon as the judge had shown him the identification document he carried in his boot.

  The old watchtower was a clumsy, square building of five storeys, standing on a raised base of roughly hewn stone blocks. The shutters of the arched windows had gone and the roof of the top storey had caved in. Two big black crows sat perched on a broken beam.

  As he came nearer he heard loud quacking. A few dozen ducks were huddling close together by the side of a muddy pool below the tower’s base. When the judge dismounted and fastened the reins to a moss-covered stone pillar, the ducks began to splash around in the water, quacking indignantly.

  The ground floor of the tower was just a dark, low vault, empty but for a heap of old broken furniture. A narrow, rickety flight of wooden stairs led up to the floor above. The judge climbed up, seeking support with his left hand from the wet, mould-covered wall, for the bannisters were gone.

  When he stepped into the half-dark, bare room, something stirred among the rags piled up on the roughly made plank-bed under the arched window. Some raucous sounds came from under a soiled, patched quilt. A quick look around showed that the room only contained a rustic table with a cracked teapot, and a bamboo bench against the side wall. In the corner was a brick oven carrying a large pan; beside it stood a rattan basket filled to the brim with pieces of charcoal. A musty smell of mould and stale sweat hung in the air.

  Suddenly the quilt was thrown to the floor. A half-naked girl with long, tousled hair jumped down from the plank-bed. After one look at the judge, she again made that strange, raucous sound and scuttled to the farthest corner. Then she dropped to her knees, trembling violently.

  Judge Dee realized that he didn’t present a very reassuring sight. He quickly pulled his identification document from his boot, unfolded it and walked up to the cowering girl, pointing with his forefinger at the large red stamp of the tribunal. Then he pointed at himself.

  She apparently understood, for now she scrambled up and stared at him with large eyes that held an animal fear. She wore nothing but a tattered skirt, fastened to her waist with a piece of straw rope. She had a shapely, well-developed body and her skin was surprisingly white. Her round face was smeared with dirt but was not unattractive. Judge Dee pulled the bench up to the table and sat down. Feeling that some familiar gesture was needed to reassure the frightened girl, he took the teapot and drank from the spout, as farmers do.

  The girl came up to the table, spat on the dirty top and drew in the spittle with her forefinger a few badly deformed characters. They read: ‘Wang did not kill him.’

  The judge nodded. He poured tea on the table-top, and motioned her to wipe it clean. She obediently went to the bed, took a rag and began to polish the table top with feverish haste. Judge Dee walked over to the stove and selected a few pieces of charcoal. Resuming his seat, he wrote with the charcoal on the table-top: ‘Who killed him?’

  THEN SHE DROPPED TO HER KNEES, TREMBLING VIOLENTLY

  She shivered. She took the other piece of charcoal and wrote: ‘Bad black goblins.’ She pointed excitedly at the words, then scribbled quickly: ‘Bad goblins changed the good rain spirit.’

  ‘You saw the black goblins?’ he wrote.

  She shook her tousled head emphatically. She tapped with her forefinger repeatedly on the word ‘black’, then she pointed at her closed eyes and shook her head again. The judge sighed. He wrote: ‘You know Mr Choong?’

  She looked perplexedly at his writing, her finger in her mouth. He realized that the complicated character indicating the surname Choong was unknown to her. He crossed it out and wrote ‘old man’.

  She again shook her head. With an expression of disgust she drew circles round the words ‘old man’ and added: ‘Too much blood. Good rain spirit won’t come any more. No silver for Wang’s boat any more.’ Tears came trickling down her grubby cheeks as she wrote with a shaking hand: ‘Good rain spirit always sleep with me.’ She pointed at the plank-bed.

  Judge Dee gave her a searching look. He knew that rain spirits played a prominent role in local folklore, so that it was only natural that they figured in the dreams and vagaries of this overdeveloped young girl. On the other hand, she had referred to silver. He wrote: ‘What does the rain spirit look like?’

  Her round face lit up. With a broad smile she wrote in big, clumsy letters: ‘Tall. Handsome. Kind.’ She drew a circle round each of the three words, then threw the charcoal on the table and, hugging her bare breasts, began to giggle ecstatically.

  The judge averted his gaze. When he turned to look at her again, she had let her hands drop and stood there staring straight ahead with wide eyes. Suddenly her expression changed again. With a quick gesture she pointed at the arched window, and made some strange sounds. He turned round. There was a faint colour in the leaden sky, the trace of a rainbow. She stared at it, in childish delight, her mouth half open. The judge took up the piece of charcoal for one final question: ‘When does the rain spirit come?’

  She stared at the words for a long time, absentmindedly combing her long, greasy locks with her fingers. At last she bent over the table and wrote: ‘Black night and much rain.’ She put circles round the words ‘black’ and ‘rain’, then added: ‘He came with the rain.’

  All at once she put her hands to her face and began to sob convulsively. The sound mingled with the loud quacking of the ducks from below. Realizing that she couldn’t hear the birds, he rose and laid his hand on her bare shoulder. When she looked up he was shocked by the wild, half-crazed gleam in her wide eyes. He quickly drew a duck on the table, and added the word ‘hunger’.. She clasped her hand to her mouth and ran to the oven. Judge Dee scrutinized the large flagstones in front of the entrance. He saw there a clean space on the dirty, dust-covered floor. Evidently it was there that the dead man had lain, and the military police had swept up the floor. He remembered ruefully his unkind thoughts about them. Sounds of chopping made him turn round. The girl was cutting up stale rice cakes on a primitive chopping board. The judge watched with a worried frown her deft handling of the large kitchen knife. Suddenly she drove the long, sharp point of the knife in the board, then shook the chopped up rice cakes into the pan on the oven, giving the judge a happy smile over her shoulder. He nodded at her and went down the creaking stairs.

  The rain had ceased, a thin mist was gathering over the marsh. While untying the reins, he told the noisy ducks: ‘Don’t worry, your breakfast is under way!’

  He made his horse go ahead at a sedate pace. The mist came drifting in from the river. Strangely shaped clouds were floating over the tall reeds, here and there dissolving in long writhing trailers that resembled the tentacles of some monstrous water-animal. He wished he knew more about the hoary, deeply rooted beliefs of the local people. In many places people still venerated a river god or goddess, and fanners and fishermen made sacrificial offerings to these at the waterside. Evidently such things loomed large in the deaf-mute girl’s feeble mind, shifting continually from fact to fiction, and unable to control the urges of her fullblown body. He drove his horse to a gallop.

  Back at the North Gate, he told the corporal to take him to the pawnbroker’s place. When they had arrived at the large, prosperous-looking pawnshop the
corporal explained that Choong’s private residence was located directly behind the shop and pointed at the narrow alleyway that led to the main entrance. Judge Dee told the corporal he could go back, and knocked on the black-lacquered gate.

  A lean man, neatly dressed in a brown gown with black sash and borders, opened it. Bestowing a bewildered look on his wet, bearded visitor, he said: ‘You want the shop, I suppose. I can take you, I was just going there.’

  ‘I am the magistrate,’ Judge Dee told him impatiently. ‘I’ve just come from the marsh. Had a look at the place where your partner was murdered. Let’s go inside, I want to hand over to you what was found on the dead body.’

  Mr Lin made a very low bow and conducted his distinguished visitor to a small but comfortable side hall, furnished in conventional style with a few pieces of heavy blackwood furniture. He ceremoniously led the judge to the broad bench at the back. While his host was telling the old manservant to bring tea and cakes, the judge looked curiously at the large aviary of copper wire on the wall table. About a dozen paddy birds were fluttering around inside.

  ‘A hobby of my partner’s,’ Mr Lin said with an indulgent smile. ‘He was very fond of birds, always fed them himself.’

  With his neatly trimmed chin-beard and small, greying moustache Lin seemed at first sight just a typical middle-class shopkeeper. But a closer inspection revealed deep lines around his thin mouth, and large, sombre eyes that suggested a man with a definite personality. The judge set his cup down and formally expressed his sympathy with the firm’s loss. Then he took the envelope from his sleeve and shook out the visiting-cards, the small cash, the pawn-ticket and the two keys. ‘That’s all, Mr Lin. Did your partner as a rule carry large sums of money on him?’

  Lin silently looked the small pile over, stroking his chin-beard.

  ‘No, sir. Since he retired from the firm two years ago, there was no need for him to carry much money about. But he certainly had more on him than just these few coppers when he went out last night.’

  ‘What time was that?’

  ‘About eight, sir. After we had had dinner together here downstairs. He wanted to take a walk along the quay, so he said.’

  ‘Did Mr Choong often do that?’

  ‘Oh yes, sir! He had always been a man of solitary habits, and after the demise of his wife two years ago, he went out for long walks nearly every other night and always by himself. He always had his meals served in his small library upstairs, although I live here in this same house, in the left wing. Last night, however, there was a matter of business to discuss and therefore he came down to have dinner with me.’

  ‘You have no family, Mr Lin?’

  ‘No, sir. Never had time to establish a household! My partner had the capital, but the actual business of the pawnshop he left largely to me. And after his retirement he hardly set foot in our shop.’

  ‘I see. To come back to last night. Did Mr Choong say when he would be back?’

  ‘No, sir. The servant had standing orders not to wait up for him. My partner was an enthusiastic fisherman, you see. If he thought it looked like good fishing weather on the quay, he would hire a boat and pass the night up river.’

  Judge Dee nodded slowly. ‘The military police will have told you that they arrested a young fisherman called Wang San-lang. Did your partner often hire his boat?’

  ‘That I don’t know, sir. There are scores of fishermen about on the quay, you see, and most of them are eager to make a few extra coppers. But if my partner rented Wang’s boat, it doesn’t astonish me that he ran into trouble, for Wang is a violent young ruffian. I know of him, because being a fisherman of sorts myself, I have often heard the others talk about him. Surly, uncompanionable youngster.’ He sighed. ‘I’d like to go out fishing as often as my partner did, only I haven’t got that much time… . Well, it’s very kind of you to have brought these keys, sir. Lucky that Wang didn’t take them and throw them away! The larger one is the key of my late partner’s library, the other of the strongbox he has there for keeping important papers.’ He stretched out his hand to take the keys, but Judge Dee scooped them up and put them in his sleeve.

  ‘Since I am here,’ he said, ‘I shall have a look at Mr Choong’s papers right now, Mr Lin. This is a murder case, and until it is solved, all the victim’s papers are temporarily at the disposal of the authorities for possible clues. Take me to the library, please.’

  ‘Certainly, sir.’ Lin took the judge up a broad staircase and pointed at the door at the end of the corridor. The judge unlocked it with the larger key.

  ‘Thanks very much, Mr Lin. I shall join you downstairs presently.’

  The judge stepped into the small room, locked the door behind him, then went to push the low, broad window wide open. The roofs of the neighbouring houses gleamed in the grey mist. He turned and sat down in the capacious armchair behind the rosewood writing-desk facing the window. After a casual look at the iron-bound strongbox on the floor beside his chair, he leaned back and pensively took stock of his surroundings. The small library was scrupulously clean and furnished with simple, old-fashioned taste. The spotless whitewashed walls were decorated with two good landscape scrolls, and the solid ebony wall table bore a slender vase of white porcelain, with a few wilting roses. Piles of books in brocade covers were neatly stacked on the shelves of the small bookcase of spotted bamboo.

  Folding his arms, the judge wondered what connection there could be between this tastefully arranged library that seemed to belong to an elegant scholar rather than to a pawnbroker, and the bare, dark room in the half-ruined watchtower, breathing decay, sloth and the direst poverty. After a while he shook his head, bent and unlocked the strongbox. Its contents matched the methodical neatness of the room: bundles of documents, each bound up with green ribbon and provided with an inscribed label. He selected the bundles marked ‘private correspondence’ and ‘accounts and receipts’. The former contained a few important letters about capital investment and correspondence from his sons, mainly about their family affairs and asking Mr Choong’s advice and instructions. Leafing through the second bundle, Judge Dee’s practised eye saw at once that the deceased had been leading a frugal, nearly austere life. Suddenly he frowned. He had found a pink receipt, bearing the stamp of a house of assignation. It was dated back a year and a half. He quickly went through the bundle and found half a dozen similar receipts, the last dated back six months. Apparently Mr Choong had, after his wife’s demise, hoped to find consolation in venal love, but had soon discovered that such hope was vain. With a sigh he opened the large envelope which he had taken from the bottom of the box. It was marked: ‘Last Will and Testament’. It was dated one year before, and stated that all of Mr Choong’s landed property-which was considerable-was to go to his two sons, together with two-thirds of his capital. The remaining one-third, and the pawnshop, was bequeathed to Mr Lin ‘in recognition of his long and loyal service to the firm’.

  The judge replaced the papers. He rose and went to inspect the bookcase. He discovered that except for two dog-eared dictionaries, all the books were collections of poetry, complete editions of the most representative lyrical poets of former times. He looked through one volume. Every difficult word had been annotated in red ink, in an unformed, rather clumsy hand. Nodding slowly, he replaced the volume. Yes, now he understood. Mr Choong had been engaged in a trade that forbade all personal feeling, namely that of a pawnbroker. And his pronouncedly ugly face made tender attachments unlikely. Yet at heart he was a romantic, hankering after the higher things of life, but very self-conscious and shy about these yearnings. As a merchant he had of course only received an elementary education, so he tried laboriously to expand his literary knowledge, reading old poetry with a dictionary in this small library which he kept so carefully locked.

  Judge Dee sat down again and took his folding fan from his sleeve. Fanning himself, he concentrated his thoughts on this unusual pawnbroker. The only glimpse the outer world got of the sensitive nature of this ma
n was his love of birds, evinced by the paddy birds downstairs. At last the judge got up. About to put his fan back into his sleeve, he suddenly checked himself. He looked at the fan absentmindedly for a while, then laid it on the desk. After a last look at the room he went downstairs.

  His host offered him another cup of tea but Judge Dee shook his head. Handing Lin the two keys, he said, ‘I have to go back to the tribunal now. I found nothing among your partner’s papers suggesting that he had any enemies, so I think that this case is exactly what it seems, namely a case of murder for gain. To a poor man, three silver pieces are a fortune. Why are those birds fluttering about?’ He went to the cage. ‘Aha, their water is dirty. You ought to tell the servant to change it, Mr Lin.’

  Lin muttered something and clapped his hands. Judge Dee groped in his sleeve. ‘How careless of me!’ he exclaimed. ‘I left my fan on the desk upstairs. Would you fetch it for me, Mr Lin? ‘

  Just as Lin was rushing to the staircase, the old manservant came in. When the judge had told him that the water in the reservoir of the birdcage ought to be changed daily, the old man said, shaking his head, ‘I told Mr Lin so, but he wouldn’t listen. Doesn’t care for birds. My master now, he loved them, he …’

  ‘Yes, Mr Lin told me that last night he had an argument with your master about those birds.’

  ‘Well yes, sir, both of them got quite excited. What was it about, sir? I only caught a few words about birds when I brought the rice.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ the judge said quickly. He had heard Mr Lin come downstairs. ‘Well, Mr Lin, thanks for the tea. Come to the chancery in, say, one hour, with the most important documents relating to your late partner’s assets. My senior clerk will help you fill out the official forms, and the registration of Mr Choong’s will.’