The Emperor's Pearl: A Judge Dee Mystery (Judge Dee Mystery Series)

by Robert Van Gulik

  ‘Did a wounded man enter the gate a while ago?’

  The corporal pushed his helmet back from his moist brow and replied unhappily:

  ‘I really couldn’t say, Excellency! We had no time to look every man up and down, the crowd…’

  ‘All right. From now on you’ll examine every man carefully for a recent knife wound. If you find him, arrest him, no matter who he is, and bring him to the tribunal at once. Send one of your soldiers on horseback to the three other city gates and transmit the same order to your colleagues on duty there!’

  Then he rode on. The streets were still filled by a merry crowd, and the wine-houses and street-stalls were doing a brisk trade. The judge guided his horse to the east quarter. He remembered having heard that Kou Yuan-liang’s house was located there. At the Garrison Headquarters he made inquiries with the captain of the guard, and an orderly conducted him to a large mansion in the quiet residential section not far from the east gate. While judge Dee dismounted, the orderly knocked on the red-lacquered double front door.

  As soon as the old gatekeeper had learned Judge Dee’s identity, he hurried inside to apprise his master of the arrival of the distinguished guest. Mr Kou came rushing out into the front courtyard. He was in a state of great consternation. Forgetting the amenities, he asked excitedly:

  ‘Was there an accident? ’

  ‘There was. Let’s go inside, shall we? ’

  ‘Of course, sir! Please excuse me, sir, I am so…’ Kou shook his head contritely, then led the judge through a winding corridor to a large library, sparsely furnished with a few solid antique pieces. When they were seated at the round tea-table in the corner Judge Dee asked:

  ‘Is your Second Lady’s personal name Amber?’

  ‘Yes, Your Honour, indeed! What has happened to her? She left here on an errand directly after dinner, and she hasn’t come back yet. What…’

  He broke off as he saw the steward come in with the tea-tray. While Mr Kou poured out two cups, the judge studied his face, slowly caressing his side-whiskers. After Kou had sat down again he said gravely:

  ‘I deeply regret to inform you, Mr Kou, that the Amber Lady was found murdered.’

  Kou grew pale. He sat very still, fixing the judge with wide, frightened eyes. Suddenly he burst out:

  ‘Murdered! How could that happen? Who did it? Where was she when…’

  Judge Dee raised his hand.

  ‘As to your last question, you know the answer to that, Mr Kou. For it was you who sent her to that lonely place.’

  ‘Lonely place? What lonely place? Heavens, why didn’t she listen to me! I implored her to tell me at least where she was going, but she…’.

  ‘You had better begin at the beginning, Mr. Kou,’ the judge interrupted him again. ‘Here, drink a cup of tea first. This must be a terrible shock to you of course. But if I don’t get all the details here and now, I’ll never catch the villain who murdered her.’

  Kou swallowed a few mouthfuls, then asked in a calmer voice:

  ‘Who did it?’

  ‘A man as yet unknown.’

  ‘How was she killed?’

  ‘By a dagger thrust into her heart. She didn’t suffer, she died at once.’

  Kou nodded slowly. He resumed in a soft voice:

  ‘She was a remarkable woman, sir. She had an uncanny talent for judging antiques and, especially, precious stones. She always assisted me in my antiquarian studies, she was such a charming companion…’ He looked forlornly at the shelves of carved blackwood that stood against the side wall to the right of the door and carried a tastefully arranged display of porcelain and jade pieces. ‘All that was done by her,’ he went on, ‘and she also made the catalogue. When I bought her four years ago she was illiterate, but after I had taught her for a year or two she had learned to write a very good hand indeed…’

  He broke off and buried his face in his hands.

  ‘Where did you acquire her? ’ Judge Dee asked gently.

  ‘She was a slave-maid in the house of old Mr Tong I-kwan. I——’

  ‘Tong I-kwan?’ Judge Dee exclaimed. That was the signature added to the inscription he had seen in the hall of the haunted house! And she had told him that she and the man she was going to meet there knew the property thoroughly! He resumed: ‘I take it that Tong I-kwan was the father of Tong Mai, the murdered student? ’

  ‘Indeed, sir. Amber was an orphan, and old Mrs Tong had grown quite fond of her. Four years ago. when Tong I-kwan was obliged to sell all his possessions, he wanted a good house for Amber, and offered her to me. Since I have no children, I bought her for four gold bars, intending to adopt her as my daughter. But she grew more beautiful every day; she had an exquisite grace, like that of a jade statue; she…’ He rubbed his hand over his eyes. After a while he added: ‘Since my First Lady is…has a chronic disease, two years ago I married Miss Amber, as my second wife. Of course I am somewhat older, but our common interests…’

  ‘I quite understand. Now, what about that errand you sent her on?’

  Kou slowly emptied his teacup before he replied:

  ‘Well, it was like this, Your Honour. She had recommended Tong Mai to me as a useful person for hunting out antiques. She knew him well of course, because they had grown up together. Two days ago she told me that Tong Mai had come upon a very rare and extremely valuable antique, a…vase. That vase was one of the finest in existence, and the price was ten gold bars. She said it was really worth double that amount, or more. Since it was a famous piece, coveted by many other collectors, Tong didn’t want it to become known that he was selling it to me. She said he had promised to hand it to her in a safe place, known to both of them. She would go there tonight, after the races. I tried to make her tell me where it was. A young woman all alone, carrying all that money…. But she insisted that it was absolutely safe…. Then, tonight, when I saw that Tong was dead, I knew that she would wait for him in vain. I had expected to find her back here already when I came home. When she didn’t come, I became worried. But I couldn’t do anything, for I didn’t even know where their meeting place was….’

  ‘I can tell you that,’ Judge Dee said ‘Their rendezvous was the deserted Tong mansion, in the forest near Marble Bridge Village. She did not know that Tong was dead. Another person who knew about the transaction went there in Tong’s place. That person murdered her, and stole the money and the, ah…vase. It was a vase you said, wasn’t it?’

  ‘The deserted house ! Almighty Heaven, why did she…Well, the place was familiar to her, of course, but…’ He dropped his gaze.

  Judge Dee gave his host a searching look. Then he asked:

  ‘Why do people say that the house is haunted? ’

  Kou looked up, startled.

  ‘Haunted? Oh, that is because of the Mandrake Grove, sir. Many centuries ago this area was a swampy, thickly-wooded region, you know, and the river was much broader than it is now. This district was the centre of the cult of the River Goddess. Fishermen and boatpeople used to come from far and near to worship her. The Mandrake Grove was a large forest at that time; in the middle stood a beautiful shrine with a colossal marble statue of the goddess. Every year a young man was sacrificed on the altar. Then, however, the Grand Canal was extended through this region, and the forest cleared. Only the grove surrounding the shrine was left untouched, in deference to the beliefs of the local people. But the government ordered the discontinuation of the human sacrifices. The next year there was a disastrous earthquake that destroyed part of the shrine, and during which the priest and his two acolytes were killed. The people said that the goddess was angry. Therefore they abandoned the shrine and built a new one, on the river-bank in Marble Bridge Village. The pathways leading through the Mandrake Grove were soon overgrown, and no one has dared to enter that grove since. Not even the gatherers of herbs venture inside, although the roots of the mandrake that gave the grove its name are supposed to have powerful medicinal properties and fetch a high price on the drug market, as Your
Honour knows.’

  Kou frowned, he seemed to have lost the thread of his narrative. He cleared his throat a few times, refilled the teacups, and then went on:

  ‘Well, ten years ago, when old Mr Tong began building his villa close by the Mandrake Grove, the local people warned him that it was sheer folly to disturb the neighbourhood of the sacred grove. They refused to work for him, saying that the White One would resent the intrusion, and that there would be droughts and other disasters if Tong did not desist. But old Tong was an obstinate fellow and, as a northerner, he did not believe in the goddess. He imported labour from another district and built his villa. He moved in with his entire family and stored there his collection of antique bronzes. I went to see him a few times and found his bronzes of exceptional quality. It’s very hard to find good bronzes nowadays, you know, it’s a great pity that…’ His voice stopped mid-sentence. He sadly shook his head, then pulled himself together and resumed: ‘One summer evening, four years ago, after a hot and sultry day, old Tong was enjoying with his family the cool evening air, sitting in the walled-in garden, in front of the East Pavilion. Then suddenly the White One appeared among the trees of the Mandrake Grove, right opposite them. Old Tong told me about it later; it was terrible…. She was naked under a white, blood-stained dress, and her long, wet hair was hanging over her face. Raising her claw-like hands covered with blood she came for them, uttering a piercing howl. Tong and the others sprang up and ran away as fast as they could. The violent storm that had been threatening all that day suddenly broke loose, there were flashes of lightning and terrific thunderclaps, followed by torrential rain. When Tong and the members of his household came stumbling into the village, drenched to the skin and their clothes torn by the branches, they were more dead than alive.

  ‘Old Tong decided of course to abandon the house at once. Moreover, the next day he heard that his firm in the capital had gone bankrupt. He sold the house and the land to a wealthy drug-dealer in the capital, and left.’

  He broke off abruptly. Judge Dee had been listening intently, slowly stroking his long black beard. After a while he asked:

  ‘Why did Miss Amber, who knew all this, still make bold to visit that haunted house at night? ’

  ‘She didn’t believe that the house was really haunted, sir. She used to say that the ghostly apparition was nothing but a hoax, arranged by the local people to frighten Tong. Moreover, being a woman, she had no need to be afraid, really. The White Goddess stands for the mysterious, creative force of fertile nature, she is considered as the guardian of womanhood. Therefore only young men were sacrificed to her, never women or girls.’

  The judge nodded. He took a few sips from his tea. As he set his cup down he suddenly addressed Kou sternly:

  ‘You allowed the Amber Lady to go out on a dangerous errand on your behalf, and she was cruelly done to death. You bear the responsibility for this dastardly crime! Yet you dare to tell me a rigmarole about an antique vase! No, don’t interrupt me. Do you really think I am so ignorant that I don’t know there is no antique vase in the Empire that is worth a dozen gold bars? Speak up, and tell the truth! What was Miss Amber trying to buy for you? ’

  Kou jumped up. He paced the floor in great agitation. At last he seemed to have made up his mind. He halted in front of the judge. After having cast an anxious glance at the closed door, he bent over to him and whispered hoarsely:

  ‘It was the Emperor’s Pearl!’

  VI

  Judge Dee looked dumbfounded at his excited host. Then he hit his fist on the table and shouted:

  ‘I ordered you, you fool, to tell the truth! And now you dare to foist on me that nonsense about the Emperor’s Pearl! Holy Heaven, my nursemaid told me that as a bedtime story when I was still a small child! The Emperor’s Pearl, forsooth!’

  He tugged angrily at his beard.

  Kou resumed his seat. He wiped his moist brow with the tip of his sleeve, then said earnestly:

  ‘It’s true, Your Honour, I swear it! Amber saw the pearl. It has the size of a dove’s egg, is perfectly oval, and has that peerless white shine that was praised so much!’

  ‘And what fancy tale did Tong Mai concoct about how he got the famous Imperial treasure into his hands? ’

  Leaning forward in his chair, Kou replied quickly:

  ‘Tong got it from a destitute old crone who used to live near to his lodging, sir. He once did her a good turn, and on her deathbed she gave him the pearl, as a token of her gratitude. Since she had no relatives left she could at last disclose the terrible old secret her family had guarded all through two generations.’

  ‘So now we have an old family secret too!’ the judge said with a sigh. ‘All right, let’s hear it!’

  ‘It’s a curious story, sir, but it bears the hallmark of truth. The old crone’s grandmother used to be a chambermaid in the Imperial seraglio. When her mother was only a child of three, the Persian Ambassador presented the famous pearl to the Illustrious Grandfather of our present Emperor, and His Majesty gave it to the Empress, on her birthday. This truly imperial gift created a tremendous stir in the harem, all the court ladies were crowding round the Empress in her bedroom to congratulate her upon this new mark of the Emperor’s love. The small girl who was playing on the terrace outside heard all the commotion. She slipped inside the room and saw the pearl, which was lying on a side-table, on a brocade cushion. She took it, put it into her mouth and went outside, planning to play with it in the garden. When the loss was discovered, the Empress summoned at once the eunuchs and the harem guards. All doors were locked, and everybody was searched. But nobody bothered about the small child that was running about in the park. Four court ladies whom the Empress suspected were tortured to death, scores of palace attendants severely flogged, but the pearl was not found, of course. The same night two Imperial Censors were ordered to institute a most thorough investigation.’

  Kou’s cheeks had reddened; in his excitement over this strange old tale he seemed to have momentarily forgotten his grief. He took a hasty sip from his tea, then resumed:

  ‘The next morning the chambermaid noticed that her small daughter was sucking on something. When she scolded the child for having been at the jar of sweets again, she innocently showed her mother that it was the pearl. The woman was frantic. If she returned the pearl and told the truth, she and her entire family would be executed, being responsible for the death of four innocent people. So she held her peace, and hid the pearl.

  ‘The investigation continued for days on end, the judges of the Metropolitan Court were ordered to assist the Censors. The Emperor promised large rewards for anyone who would be able to solve the riddle, and the incident became known all over the Empire. All kinds of theories were brought forward, but of course the pearl was never found.

  ‘The maid kept the pearl till she felt her end approaching, then she gave it to the mother of the old crone, swearing her to silence. That woman married a carpenter who got into debt, and she lived in poverty till the end of her days. You can imagine the dire straits those people were in, sir! They held a fabulous treasure in their hands, but it was of no avail, for they could never turn it into cash. No dealer would dare to touch it, he would report to the authorities at once, with all the terrible consequences. As well as causing the death of four innocent women, the family was also guilty of robbing the Imperial House, and such a sacrilegious crime is brought home to those responsible till the third generation. On the other hand they could not bear to throw the pearl into a well or get rid of it in some other way. The pearl must have haunted the unfortunate owners! The old crone’s husband died when she was still a young woman. Although she had to eke out a precarious existence as laundrywoman, she never dared to tell anybody about the treasure in her possession. It was only when all her relatives had died, and when she herself was mortally ill, that she took out the pearl and gave it to Tong Mai.’

  Kou fell silent. He looked expectantly at the judge.

  Judge Dee made no comment. H
e reflected that this could well be the perfectly simple solution of that century-old riddle over which the most ingenious brains had been puzzling for so long. The Empress surrounded by a bevy of excited court ladies, all dressed in their wide, trailing robes that billowed around them…one could well imagine that no one noticed the small child romping about on the floor. On the other hand it could also be just a cleverly made up fairy-tale. After a long silence he asked evenly:

  ‘Why didn’t Tong Mai take the pearl to the palace? The court officials could easily check the lineage of the old woman, and if she was really descended from that chambermaid, they would give Tong a rich reward. Much more than your ten gold bars.’

  ‘Tong was, after all, only a vagrant student, sir. He was afraid that the authorities would not believe his story, and put him to the torture. Thus it seemed a reasonable arrangement that he would get the ten gold bars, and I the credit of having restored this long-lost treasure to its rightful owner, our Imperial House.’

  Judge Dee observed dubiously his host’s virtuous expression. He felt inclined to doubt his last statement. Enthusiast collectors often had no morality at all. He thought it far more likely that Kou would have kept the pearl for himself, in order to gloat over it secretly for the rest of his life. He said coldly:

  ‘You call it a reasonable arrangement. I call it criminal failure to report at once vital facts regarding a theft from the palace. You should have reported to me at once what the Amber Lady had told you. Now you have caused the loss of an Imperial treasure. I hope for you that it will prove to be only a temporary loss. I shall do what I can to trace the murderer and to recover the pearl. The pearl may then prove to be a fake, and the story a hoax—if you are lucky, that is!’ Cutting short Kou’s stuttered questions by getting up abruptly, the judge resumed: ‘One last question. Did Tong Mai tell you that he had repaired the pavilion of the old house, and used it for storing the curios he dealt in?’