Judge Dee At Work

by Robert Van Gulik

  She bit her twitching lips. After a brief pause Judge Dee asked: ‘Did you tell your husband who your lover was?’

  ‘No, Your Honour. The man treated me shabbily, but I saw no reason why I should ruin his reputation. Neither do I see a reason for doing so now. And my husband never asked me.’

  ‘I see,’ the judge said. The woman’s frank statement bore the hallmark of truth. Now he knew who had murdered the boy. And also the motive: the boy had had to be silenced, as Ma Joong had correctly supposed at the very beginning. But thereafter his lieutenant had failed to apply this theory to the facts that had come to light. Tugging at his moustache, the judge reflected ruefully that although he now knew who had exchanged the swords, there wasn’t a shred of evidence. If he didn’t act quickly, he would never be able to prove who committed the crime. He must make the criminal confess here and now, before he had time to realize the full implications of Mrs Bao’s statement. He curtly told the headman: ‘Bring the accused Lau before me!’

  When the rice-dealer was standing in front of the desk, Judge Dee addressed him harshly: ‘Lau, here in Poo-yang you have carefully built up a reputation as an honest rice-dealer and a man of impeccable morals, but I know all about your activities in Woo-yee. You tried to deceive your own guild, and you kept a mistress there. Hoo Ta-ma supplied additional details. I advise you to answer my questions truthfully! Speak up, do you admit that it was you who had a liaison with Mrs Bao, eight years ago?’

  ‘I do,’ Lau replied in an unsteady voice. ‘I beg Your Honour to …’

  There was a strangled cry. Miss Bao had risen from her chair. Clenching her hands, she stared at Lau with wide, burning eyes. He stepped back, muttering something. Suddenly she screamed:

  ‘You unspeakable cad! May heaven and hell curse me for foolishly believing your string of lies! Played the same trick on my mother, eh? And to think that because I was a credulous fool, was afraid, afraid that the brat would tell you about my meeting Hoo, I put the wrong sword on top! I’ll kill you too, you …’

  She went for the cowering man, raising her hands like claws. The two constables quickly stepped forward and grabbed her arms. On a sign from the judge they led her away, screaming and fighting like a wildcat.

  Her parents looked after her with unbelieving eyes. Then her mother burst out in sobs.

  Judge Dee rapped his knuckles on the table. ‘Tomorrow I shall hear Miss Bao’s full confession in court. As to you, Lau, I shall institute a thorough inquiry into all your affairs, and I shall see to it that you get a long prison term. I dislike people of your type, Lau. Hoo Ta-ma, you shall be sentenced to one year compulsory labour with the sappers of our Northern Army. That’ll give you a chance to prove what you are worth; in due time you’ll perhaps be enlisted as a regular soldier.’ Turning to the headman, he added: ‘Lead the two prisoners back to jail!’

  For a while the judge looked silently at the actor and his wife. She had stopped crying; now she sat very still, her eyes downcast. Bao looked worriedly at her, the lines on his expressive actor’s face had deepened. Judge Dee addressed them gently:

  ‘Your daughter could not cope with the hard life fate had allotted to her, and it thoroughly corrupted her character. I must propose the death penalty for her. That means that you lose, on one and the same day, both your daughter and your son. But time shall heal this cruel wound. You two are still in the prime of life, you love each other and your profession, and that twofold devotion shall be a lasting support. Though everything will seem dark to you now, remember that even behind the darkest clouds of night there shines the moon of dawn.’

  They rose, made a deep bow and took their leave.

  7 The Coffins of the Emperor

  The events described in this story took place when Judge Dee was occupying his fourth post as magistrate, namely of Lan-fang, an isolated district on the western frontier of the mighty T’ang Empire. Here he met with considerable trouble when taking up his duties, as described in the novel The Chinese Maze Murders. The present story tells about the grave crisis that threatened the Empire two years later, in the winter of the year A.D. 672, and how Judge Dee succeeded in solving, on one and the same night, two difficult problems, one affecting the fate of the nation, the other the fate of two humble people.

  As soon as Judge Dee had entered the dining-room on the restaurant’s top floor, he knew that the banquet would be a dismal affair. The light of two large silver candelabras shone on the beautiful antique furniture, but the spacious room was heated by only one small brazier, where two or three pieces of coal were dying in the embers. The padded curtains of embroidered silk could not keep out the cold draught, reminding one of the snowy plains that stretched out for thousands of miles beyond the western frontier of the Chinese Empire.

  At the round table sat only one man, the thin, elderly magistrate of Ta-shih-kou, this remote boundary district. The two girls who were standing behind his chair looked listlessly at the tall, bearded newcomer.

  Magistrate Kwang rose hastily and came to meet Judge Dee.

  ‘I profoundly apologize for these poor arrangements!’ he said with a bleak smile. ‘I had invited also two colonels and two guildmasters, but the colonels were suddenly summoned to the Marshal’s headquarters, and the guildmasters were wanted by the Quartermaster-General. This emergency …’ He raised his hands in a helpless gesture.

  The main thing is that I shall now profit from your instructive conversation!’ Judge Dee said politely.

  His host led him to the table and introduced the very young girl on his left as Tearose, and the other as Jasmine. Both were gaudily dressed and wore cheap finery-they were common prostitutes rather than the refined courtesans one would expect at a dinner party. But Judge Dee knew that all the courtesans of Ta-shih-kou were now reserved for the high-ranking officers of the Marshal’s headquarters. When Jasmine had filled Judge Dee’s wine beaker, Magistrate Kwang raised his own and said:

  ‘I welcome you, Dee, as my esteemed colleague of the neighbour-district and my honoured guest. Let’s drink to the victory of our Imperial Army!’

  ‘To victory!’ Judge Dee said and emptied his beaker in one draught.

  From the street below came the rumble of iron-studded cartwheels on the frozen ground.

  ‘That’ll be the troops going to the front at last for our counter-offensive,’ the judge said with satisfaction.

  Kwang listened intently. He sadly shook his head. ‘No,’ he said curtly, ‘they are going too slowly. They are coming back from the battlefield.’

  Judge Dee rose, pulled the curtain aside and opened the window, braving the icy wind. In the eerie moonlight he saw down below a long file of carts, drawn by emaciated horses. They were packed with wounded soldiers and long shapes covered with canvas. He quickly closed the window.

  ‘Let’s eat!’ Kwang said, pointing with his chopsticks at the silver bowls and platters on the table. Each contained only a small quantity of salted vegetables, a few dried-out slices of ham and cooked beans.

  ‘Coolie fare in silver vessels-that sums up the situation!’ Kwang spoke bitterly. ‘Before the war my district had plenty of everything. Now all food is getting scarce. If this doesn’t change soon we’ll have a famine on our hands.’

  Judge Dee wanted to console him, but he quickly put his hand to his mouth. A racking cough shook his powerful frame. His colleague gave him a worried look and asked, ‘Has the lung epidemic spread to your district too?’

  The judge waited till the attack had passed, then he quickly emptied his beaker and replied hoarsely, ‘Only a few isolated cases, and none really bad. In a milder form, like mine.’

  ‘You are lucky,’ Kwang said dryly. ‘Here most of those who get it start spitting blood in a day or two. They are dying like rats. I hope your quarters are comfortable,’ he added anxiously.

  ‘Oh yes, I have a good room at one of the larger inns,’ Judge Dee replied. In fact he had to share a draughty attic with three officers, but he didn’t like to distress
his host further. Kwang hadn’t been able to accommodate him in his official residence because it had been requisitioned by the army, and the magistrate had been obliged to move with his entire family into a small ramshackle house. It was a strange situation; in normal times a magistrate was well-nigh all-powerful, the highest authority in his district. But now the army had taken over. ‘I’ll go back to Lan-fang tomorrow morning,’ the judge resumed. ‘There are many things to be attended to, for in my district also food is getting scarce.’

  Kwang nodded gloomily. Then he asked: ‘Why did the Marshal summon you? It’s a good two days’ journey from Lan-fang to here, and the roads are bad.’

  ‘The Uigurs have their tents on the other side of the river that borders my district,’ Judge Dee replied. ‘The Marshal wanted to know whether they were likely to join the Tartar armies. I told him that …’ He broke off and looked dubiously at the two girls. The Tartar spies were everywhere.

  ‘They are all right,’ Kwang said quickly.

  ‘Well, I informed the Marshal that the Uigurs can only bring two thousand men in the field, and that their Khan went on a prolonged hunting trip to Central Asia, just before the Tartar emissaries arrived at his camp to ask him to join forces with them. The Uigur Khan is a wise man. We have his favourite son as hostage, you see, in the capital.’

  ‘Two thousand men won’t make any difference either way,’ Kwang remarked. ‘Those accursed Tartars have three hundred thousand men standing at our frontier, ready to strike. Our front is crumbling under their probing attacks, and the Marshal keeps his two hundred thousand men idle here, instead of starting the promised counteroffensive.’

  For a while the two men ate in silence, while the girls kept their cups filled. When they had finished the beans and salted vegetables, Magistrate Kwang looked up and asked Tearose impatiently, ‘Where is the rice?’

  ‘The waiter said they don’t have any, sir,’ the girl replied.

  ‘Nonsense!’ the magistrate exclaimed angrily. He rose and said to Judge Dee: ‘Excuse me a moment, will you? I’ll see to this myself!’

  When he had gone downstairs with Tearose, the other girl said softly to Judge Dee, ‘Would you do me a great favour, sir?’

  The judge looked up at her. She was a not unattractive woman of about twenty. But the thick layer of rouge on her face could not mask her sallow complexion and hollow cheeks. Her eyes were unnaturally wide and had a feverish glow.

  ‘What is it?’ he asked.

  ‘I am feeling ill, sir. If you could leave early and take me with you, I would gladly receive you after I have rested awhile.’

  He noticed that her legs were trembling with fatigue. ‘I’ll be glad to,’ he replied. ‘But after I’ve seen you home, I shall go on to my own lodging.’ He added with a thin smile: ‘I am not feeling too well myself, you know.’

  She gave him a grateful look.

  When Magistrate Kwang and Tearose came back, Kwang said contritely, ‘I am very sorry, Dee, but it’s true. There is no rice left.’

  ‘Well,’ Judge Dee said, ‘I enjoyed our meeting very much. I also think that Jasmine here is quite attractive. Would you think it very rude if I asked to be excused now?’

  Kwang protested that it was far too early to part, but it was clear that he too thought this the best solution. He conducted Judge Dee downstairs and took leave of him in the hall. Jasmine helped the judge don his heavy fur coat, then they went out into the cold street. Sedan-chairs were not to be had for love or money; all the bearers had been enlisted for the army transports.

  The carts with the dead and wounded were still filing through the streets. Often the judge and his companion had to press themselves against the wall of a house to let dispatch-riders pass, driving their weary horses on with obscene curses.

  Jasmine led the judge down a narrow side street to a small hovel, leaning against a high, dark godown. Two struggling pine trees flanked the cracked door, their branches bent low under the load of frozen snow.

  Judge Dee took a silver piece from his sleeve. Handing it to her, he said, ‘Well, I’ll be going on now, my inn …’ A violent attack of coughing seized him.

  ‘You’ll come inside and at least drink something hot,’ she said firmly. ‘You aren’t fit to walk about as you are.’ She opened the door and dragged the judge inside, still coughing.

  The attack subsided only after she had taken his fur coat and made him sit down in the bamboo chair at the rickety tea-table. It was very warm in the small dark room; the copper brazier in the corner was heaped with glowing coals. Noticing his astonished glance, she said with a sneer; ‘That’s the advantage of being a prostitute nowadays. We get plenty of coal, army issue. Serve our gallant soldiers!’

  She took the candle, lit it at the brazier, then put it back on the table. She disappeared through the door curtain in the back wall. Judge Dee surveyed the room in the flickering light of the candle. Against the wall opposite him stood a large bedstead; its curtains were drawn, revealing rumpled quilts and a soiled double-pillow.

  Suddenly he heard a queer sound. He looked round. It came from behind a faded blue curtain, which was covering something close to the wall. It flashed through his mind that this could well be a trap. The military police flogged thieves on the street corners till their bones lay bare, yet robbery and assault were rampant in the city. He rose quickly, stepped up to the curtain and ripped it aside.

  He blushed despite himself. A wooden crib stood against the wall. The small round head of a baby emerged from under a thick, patched quilt. It stared up at him with its large wise eyes. The judge hurriedly pulled the curtain close, and resumed his seat.

  The woman came in carrying a large teapot. Pouring him a cup, she said, ‘Here, drink this. It’s a special kind of tea; they say it cures a cough.’

  She went behind the curtain and came back with the child in her arms. She carried it to the bed, pulled the quilts straight with one hand and turned the pillow over.

  ‘Excuse this mess,’ she said at she laid the child on the bed. ‘I had a customer here just before the magistrate had me called to attend our dinner.’ With the unconcern marking women of her profession, she took off her robe. Clad only in her wide trousers, she sat on the bed and leaned back against the pillow with a sigh of relief. Then she took up the child and laid it against her left breast. It started drinking contentedly.

  Judge Dee sipped the medicinal tea; it had an agreeable bitter taste. After a while he asked her: ‘How old is your child?’

  ‘Two months,’ the woman replied listlessly. ‘It’s a boy.’

  His eye fell on the long white scars on her shoulders; one broad weal sorely mutilated her right breast. She looked up and saw his glance. She said indifferently, ‘Oh, they didn’t mean to do that, it was my own fault. When they were flogging me, I tried to wrench myself loose, and one tongue of the scourge curled over my shoulder and tore my breast.’

  ‘Why were you flogged?’ the judge asked.

  ‘Too long a story to tell!’ she said curtly. She concentrated her attention on the child.

  Judge Dee finished his tea in silence. His breathing came easier now, but his head was still throbbing with a dull ache. When he had drunk a second cup, Jasmine carried the baby back to the crib and pulled the curtain shut. She came to the table, stretched herself and yawned. Pointing at the bedstead, she asked, ‘What about it? I have rested a bit now, and the tea hardly covers what you paid me.’

  ‘Your tea is excellent,’ the judge said wearily; ‘it more than covers what I gave you.’ In order not to offend her he added quickly, ‘I wouldn’t risk infecting you with this accursed lung trouble. I’ll have one more cup, then I’ll be on my way.’

  ‘As you like!’ Sitting down opposite him, she added, ‘I’ll have a cup myself, my throat is parched.’

  In the street footsteps crunched in the frozen snow. It was the men of the night watch. They beat midnight on their wooden clappers. Jasmine shrank in her seat. Putting her hand to her throat, sh
e gasped, ‘Midnight already?’

  ‘Yes,’ Judge Dee said worriedly, ‘if we don’t start our counter-offensive very soon, I fear the Tartar hordes will break through and overrun this area. We’ll drive them back again, of course, but since you have that nice child, wouldn’t it be wiser if you packed up and went east tomorrow morning?’

  She was looking straight ahead, agony in her feverish eyes. Then she spoke, half to herself, ‘Six hours to go!’ Looking at the judge, she added: ‘My child? At dawn his father will be beheaded.’

  Judge Dee set his cup down. ‘Beheaded?’ he exclaimed. ‘I am sorry. Who is he?’

  ‘A captain, name of Woo.’

  ‘What did he do?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘You aren’t beheaded for nothing!’ the judge remarked crossly.

  ‘He was falsely accused. They said he strangled the wife of a fellow officer. He was court-martialled and condemned to death. He has been in the military jail now for about a year, waiting for the confirmation. It came today.’

  Judge Dee tugged at his moustache. ‘I have often worked together with the military police,’ he said. ‘Their judicial system is cruder than our civilian procedure, but I have always found them efficient, and very conscientious. They don’t make many mistakes.’