Poets And Murder

by Robert Van Gulik

  ‘Very pretty!’ the Academician remarked behind Judge Dee.

  There followed a bouquet of flowers that after a while exploded loudly into a flight of butterflies. Then came a long series of symbolical figures, in dazzling colours. The judge wanted to begin a conversation with the poetess, but he thought better of it when he saw her wan, drawn face. Suddenly she turned to Lo and said:

  ‘You are doing us very well, magistrate. It’s a magnificent spectacle!’

  The self-deprecatory remarks of her neighbour were drowned in a series of loud detonations. Judge Dee inhaled with satisfaction the acrid powder smell that rose up from the garden. It cleared his head a little, for he had drunk many cups, and in quick succession. Now there appeared a large tableau, representing the conventional triad of the characters for Happiness, Riches and Long Life. There was a last burst of crackers, then the garden grew dark.

  ‘Thanks very much, Lo,’ the Court Poet said. He had come up to the balustrade, together with the Academician and Sexton Loo. While they were complimenting the magistrate, Yoo-lan said in a low voice to the judge:

  ‘That conventional triad is very silly. If you’re happy, riches’ll make you unhappy, and a long life’ll make you outlive your happiness. Let’s go inside, it’s getting chilly here, and they are lighting the candles again.’

  When the guests were resuming their places, six servants came in carrying steaming dishes of dumplings. The poetess had not sat down.

  ‘I’ll go and see whether Small Phoenix is ready for her dance,’ she told the judge. ‘The girl hopes to establish a reputation by performing before this select company, you know. Dreams of getting invited to the capital, I bet!’ She went to the arched door-opening behind their table.

  ‘I propose a toast to our generous host!’ the Academician called out.

  They all raised their wine cups. The judge picked up a dumpling. It was stuffed with chopped pork and onions, flavoured with ginger. He noticed that the sexton had been served a special vegetarian dish of fried bean-curd; but he did not touch it. He was crumbling a piece of candied fruit in his thick fingers, his protruding eyes fixed on the door-opening through which the poetess had disappeared. All of a sudden Magistrate Lo let his chopsticks clatter down on the table. With a smothered exclamation he pointed at the door. Judge Dee turned round in his chair.

  The poetess was standing in the archway. Her face deadly pale, she was looking dazedly at her hands. They were covered in blood.

  Chapter 11

  AS SHE BEGAN to sway on her feet, the judge, who was nearest to her, jumped up and took her arm. ‘Are you wounded?’ he asked sharply.

  The poetess looked up at him with vacant eyes.

  ‘She … she’s dead,’ she faltered. ‘In the green-room. A gaping wound … in her throat. I … I got it on my hands… .’

  ‘What the devil does she say?’ the Academician shouted. ‘Did she cut her hands?’

  ‘No, it seems that the dancer had an accident,’ Judge Dee told them soberly. ‘We’ll see what we can do for her.’ He beckoned to Lo, and led the poetess outside; she leaned heavily on his arm. In the side-hall Counsellor Kao and the housemaster were giving instructions to a maid. They gave the poetess a startled look, and the maid let the tray she was carrying clatter down on to the floor. As Magistrate Lo came rushing outside, the judge told him in a whisper, ‘The dancer was murdered.’

  Lo snapped at his counsellor:

  ‘Run to the main gate and tell them to let no one pass! Order a clerk to call the coroner!’ And to the housemaster: ‘See to it that all the gates of the residence are locked at once, then call the matron!’ Swinging round to the dumbfounded maid, he barked, ‘Take Miss Yoo-lan to the anteroom at the end of the balcony, make her comfortable in an armchair and stay with her till the matron arrives!’

  Judge Dee had pulled the napkin from the maid’s sash and now he quickly wiped Yoo-lan’s hands. There was no wound. ‘How do we get to the green-room?’ he asked his colleague, handing the fainting woman over to the maid.

  ‘Come along!’ Lo said briskly and went down a narrow side-passage along the left side of the banquet hall. He pushed open the door at the end, then halted with a gasp. After a quick glance at the dark flight of stairs that led down opposite the door, Judge Dee followed him inside the narrow, oblong room that smelled of sweat and perfume. No one was about there, but the light of the high, white-silk floor lamp shone on the half-naked body of Small Phoenix, lying on her back across the ebony bench. She was clad only in a transparent underrobe; her white, muscular legs hung down on to the floor. Her thin bare arms were flung out, her broken eyes stared up at the ceiling. The left side of her throat was a mass of blood that was slowly spreading on the reed-matting of the bench. Fingermarks in blood stood out on her bony shoulders. Her heavily made-up, mask-like face, with its long nose and distorted mouth that showed a row of small sharp teeth, reminded the judge of the snout of a fox.

  Magistrate Lo put his hand under one of her small, pointed breasts.

  ‘Must’ve happened only a few minutes ago!’ he muttered as he righted himself. ‘And there’s the murder weapon!’ He pointed at a pair of scissors on the floor, stained with blood.

  While Lo bent over the scissors, Judge Dee cast a quick glance at the woman’s garments, neatly folded on the chair in front of the simple dressing-table. On the high clothes-rack in the corner hung a voluminous green silk robe with wide sleeves, a red sash and two long scarves of transparent silk. Turning to his colleague, he said:

  ‘She was killed as she was about to slip into that dancing-robe.’ He picked up the student’s score book from the table, and put it in his sleeve. His eyes fell on a small door, at a right-angle to the one through which they had come in. ‘Where does this lead to?’

  ‘To the banquet hall. It’s right behind the wall screen.’

  Judge Dee turned the knob. When he had opened the door a crack, he heard the voice of the Court Poet: ‘… that Lo keeps a physician on the premises. For …’

  Pulling the door shut softly, the judge said:

  ‘You’ll want to have a good look around, Lo. Don’t you think I’d better go back to the banquet hall, and deputize as host?’

  ‘Please do, Dee! Glad you said it was an accident. Let’s keep to that; it won’t do to upset the guests. Say she cut herself with a pair of scissors. See you later, when I have questioned everybody.’

  The judge nodded and went out. He told the cluster of frightened servants in the side-hall to go about their business, and re-entered the banquet hall. Resuming his seat, he said:

  ‘The dancer let her scissors drop on her right foot, and a vein was cut. The poetess tried to staunch the blood, but she got faint and rushed back to us for help. I’ll deputize for Lo, if I may.’

  ‘Trust a woman to lose her head on such an occasion!’ the Academician said. ‘Glad it wasn’t Yoo-lan who hurt herself. I am sorry for that Phoenix girl, though. But I can’t say I mind missing that fox dance. We are gathered here for a more exalted purpose than to watch à wench tripping about!’

  ‘Hard luck for a dancer to hurt her foot,’ the poet remarked. ‘“Well, now that we are four, we might as well forego all formality. Why don’t we have these three tables turned into one? If Yoo-lan picks up again, we’ll make room for her.’

  ‘Very good!’ the judge exclaimed. He clapped his hands and ordered the servants to push the two side-tables up against the main one. He and the sexton moved their seats up, so that now they sat facing Shao and Chang across the improvised square table. He motioned the maids to refill their cups. After they had drunk to the speedy recovery of the dancer, two servants brought a tray with roasted duck, and the orchestra began another melody. The Academician raised his hand and shouted:

  ‘Tell’m to take that tray back, Dee! And send those fiddlers away too. We’ve had plenty to eat, and plenty of music! Now we can start to drink in earnest!’

  The Court Poet proposed another toast, then Sexton Loo, a
nd Judge Dee toasted the three guests on behalf of their absent host. The Academician involved the poet in a complicated discussion of the merits of classical prose as compared with modern styles. This permitted the judge to engage Sexton Loo in conversation. The sexton had been drinking heavily; his vows evidently didn’t include abstinence from wine. The film of moisture covering his coarse face made him resemble a toad more than ever. Judge Dee began:

  ‘Before dinner you said you were not a Buddhist, sir. Why then do you retain the title of sexton?’

  ‘The rank was bestowed upon me when I was young, and it stuck,’ the other replied gruffly. ‘Undeservedly, I admit. For I leave it to the dead to bury their own.’ He emptied his cup in one draught.

  ‘There seem to be many Buddhists in this district. I noticed a street lined by half a dozen Buddhist temples. Had only time to look at one, the Temple of Subtle Insight. What denomination does it belong to?’

  The sexton looked him over with his bulging eyes which now had a curious reddish gleam.

  ‘To none. They have found that the shortest way to the ultimate truth lies in one’s own self. We don’t need the Buddha to tell us where and how to discover it. There are no gaudy altars, no holy books, no noisy religious services. It’s a quiet place and I always stay there when I come here.’

  ‘Hey, Sexton!’ the Academician called out. ‘Chang here tells me that his own poems are getting shorter all the time! He’ll end up by writing some of two lines only, just like you!’

  ‘I wish I could!’ the poet said wistfully. His cheeks were flushed. The judge thought Chang couldn’t stand his drinks as well as the Academician, whose heavy-jowled, pale face was as impassive as ever. Shaking his head, the poet went on, ‘At first sight your lines seem trite, Sexton; sometimes they don’t even seem to make sense! Yet you can’t put them out of your mind, and one day you suddenly see the point. A special toast to our great couplet poet, gentlemen!’

  After they had emptied their cups, the poet resumed:

  ‘Now that we have the place to ourselves, so to speak, why don’t you inscribe that screen for our host, eh, Sexton? Your unrivalled calligraphy’ll compensate Lo for all the good toasts he is missing!’

  The ugly monk set down his wine cup.

  ‘I’ll dispense with your levity, Chang,’ he said coldly. ‘I take my work seriously.’

  ‘Ho ho, Sexton!’ the Academician shouted. ‘We’ll have none of your excuses. You don’t dare to write, because you’ve had too much. I bet your legs are getting wobbly already! Come on, it’s now or never!’

  The Court Poet burst out laughing. Ignoring him, the sexton told the judge quietly:

  ‘It’ll be quite a job to get that big screen down, and the servants are all in a dither. If you get me a sheet of paper, I’ll write a poem for our host here at the table.’

  ‘All right!’ the Academician told him. ‘We are magnanimous! Since you are too drunk to write your enormous characters, we’ll let you off with one tiny little inscription. Tell those chaps to bring ink and paper, Dee!’

  Two servants cleared the table, and a maid brought a roll of blank paper and a tray with writing implements. Judge Dee selected a sheet of thick white paper of five by two feet and smoothed it out on the table while the sexton rubbed the ink, mumbling something with his thick lips. When the fat monk took up the writing-brush, the judge put his hands on the upper end of the paper to keep it steady.

  The sexton rose. He stared for one brief moment at the paper, then his hand shot out and he wrote two lines, each in practically one sweep of the brush, as quickly and surely as the lash of a whip.

  ‘By heaven!’ the Academician exclaimed. ‘This is indeed what the ancients called inspired writing! Can’t say I care much for the content, but the calligraphy is worthy of being engraved into stone, for posterity!’

  The Court Poet read the lines aloud:

  ‘ “We all return to where we came from: Where the flame went of the doused candle.” Care to explain the meaning, Sexton?’

  ‘I don’t.’ The sexton selected a smaller brush, and dedicated the poem to Magistrate Lo, signing it in one flourish: ‘Old Man Loo’.

  Judge Dee told the maids to stick the sheet up on the central panel of the wall screen. It struck him that it was an apt epitaph for the young dancer whose dead body was lying in the room behind.

  Counsellor Kao came in. Bending over, he whispered something in Judge Dee’s ear. The judge nodded and said:

  ‘My colleague told me to inform you, gentlemen, that to his profound regret he has to forego the honour of attending upon you. The poetess Yoo-lan asks to be excused also, for she has a splitting headache. I hope that the distinguished company will kindly consent to make do with me as deputy host.’

  The Academician emptied his cup. Wiping his moustache, he said:

  ‘You are doing very well, Dee, but I think we’ll call it a day, eh, gentlemen?’ He got up. ‘We’ll thank Lo tomorrow morning, when we view the Moon altar together.’ Judge Dee conducted him to the broad staircase, the counsellor following them with the poet and the sexton. Going down, Shao said with a broad smile:

  ‘Next time the two of us must have a longer talk, Dee! Eager to hear your views on administrative problems. I am always interested in hearing what younger officials have to say about …’ Suddenly he gave the judge a doubtful look, as if debating whether he hadn’t already said all this. He solved the problem by concluding jovially, ‘Anyway, I’ll see you tomorrow! Good night!’

  After Judge Dee and Counsellor Kao had seen the three guests off and taken leave of them with many low bows, the judge asked:

  ‘Where’s the magistrate, Mr Kao?’

  ‘In the anteroom down here in the main hall, sir. I’ll lead the way.’

  The small magistrate was sitting at the tea-table, hunched up in an armchair, his elbows on the table, head bent. Hearing the judge come inside, he looked up with haggard eyes. His round face was drawn; even his moustache was drooping.

  ‘I am lost, Dee,’ he said hoarsely. ‘Ruined completely. For good!’

  Chapter 12

  JUDGE DEE pulled up another chair and sat down opposite his colleague.

  ‘It can hardly be as bad as all that,’ he said soothingly. ‘It’s never pleasant to have a murder in your own residence, of course, but such things happen. As to the motive of this brazen murder, it’ll interest you that the flute-player downtown, whom I consulted about Soong’s musical score, told me that Small Phoenix was an expert in fleecing her customers. A girl who encourages men, then refuses them at the last moment, is liable to make bitter enemies. I suppose one of those utilized the bustle of caterers and tradesmen going in and out of here for slipping inside unnoticed, and reached the green-room by that dark flight of stairs I noticed opposite the door.’

  Lo had hardly listened. Now, however, he lifted his head and said wearily:

  The door at the bottom of that staircase has been locked as long as I’ve lived here. My womenfolk aren’t always as obedient as one would wish, but I am still far removed from putting the Consort’s Staircase to use.’

  ‘A consort’s staircase? What on earth is that?’

  ‘Ah, well, you don’t read modern poetry, do you? Fact is that the notorious Ninth Prince who resided here twenty years ago was not only a traitor, but a henpecked husband to boot. Some say it was the goading and nagging of his consort that made him attempt his ill-fated rebellion. It was she who ruled “from behind the screen”, as the saying goes. She had that room behind the banquet hall built, and the flight of stairs, which connects down below with a corridor leading straight to the women’s quarters. There was a high screen standing in the rear of the hall, then as now. When the prince was sitting on his throne in front of the screen, holding an audience, his consort went to that room and stood herself behind the screen, listening to the proceedings. If she knocked on the screen once, the prince knew he had to say no, if twice he could say yes. The story became so well known that the term �
��consort’s staircase” is now widely used as a literary allusion, meaning a henpecked husband.’

  Judge Dee nodded. ‘Well, if the murderer couldn’t get to the green-room by the backstairs, how then did he manage to …’

  Lo heaved a deep sigh, sadly shaking his head.

  ‘Don’t you see it, Dee? It was that confounded poetess who did it, of course!’

  The judge sat up in his chair. ‘Impossible, Lo! Do you mean to say that Yoo-lan went into the green-room just when the dancer …’ He broke off in mid-sentence. ‘Holy heaven!’ he muttered. ‘Yes, she could’ve done just that, of course. But why, in the name of heaven?’

  ‘You read the biographical account I wrote, didn’t you? I made things sufficiently clear there, I trust. She had got fed up with men. When she met Small Phoenix, she took a fancy to her. I thought it was a bit strange that she personally took the dancer to my office. “My dear this” and “my dear that”! Tonight she came to the banquet hall well ahead of time, to help the dancer prepare for her dance. Prepare, my foot! She hung about in that green-room for more than half an hour! Tried to make up to the wench, of course. The dancer threatened to lodge a complaint. During the first half of the dinner that blasted poetess worked out a plan to silence her.’

  ‘Just because the dancer threatened to complain?’ the judge asked, incredulous. ‘Yoo-lan couldn’t care less! In the past she has had a number of …’ He clapped his hand to his forehead. ‘My humble apologies, Lo! I am very dense tonight! Merciful heaven, an official complaint by the dancer could’ve brought Yoo-lan to the scaffold! It would support the testimony of the murdered maid’s lover, and turn the scales against her!’

  ‘Exactly. The affair that forced her to leave Szuchuan was effectively hushed up. The girl concerned being a Prefect’s daughter, there was no danger of any damaging evidence coming from that quarter. But imagine a professional dancer appearing in court, delivering a frank testimony, with all the lurid details, about an offence committed right here, next door to the hall where an official banquet was being held! It would settle Yoo-lan’s hash, once and for all! The poetess was desperate.’ He rubbed his podgy hand over his moist face. ‘But not more desperate than I am now! It was my good right, as magistrate of this district, to detain an accused being escorted across my territory. But I had to give the sergeant in charge of her guarantee, of course. Stating in black and white, and over my seal and signature, that I am completely responsible for the prisoner as long as she is under my roof. And now the woman has committed a murder here, and a murder of exactly the same nature as the one she stands accused of! The damned cheek of it! She expects me to gloss over the crime, of course, report it as committed by the famous unknown intruder from outside. So as to save her skin and mine! But there she’s got me wrong!’