The Lacquer Screen

by Robert Van Gulik

  Chiao Tai looked round. When he saw the ugly man he quickly averted his gaze and said to the judge in an undertone:

  ‘Do you see that fellow sitting alone at that corner table behind me? He looks like some loathsome insect that has just crawled out of its shell!’

  Judge Dee looked and said:

  ‘Yes, he doesn’t look very prepossessing. Now, what are you reading there?’

  ‘It’s a guide-book of Wei-ping that the waiter lent me. It was an excellent idea to break our journey here!’ Pushing the open book over to the judge, he continued: ‘Look, it says here that in the Temple of the War God there’s a set of life-size statues of a dozen of our famous ancient generals, done by a great sculptor of olden times. Then there is a magnificent hot spring that——’

  ‘The magistrate’s counsellor told me all about it just now!’ the judge interrupted him with a smile. ‘We’ll be quite busy here seeing the sights. ‘He sipped from his tea, then added: ‘My colleague here, Teng, disappointed me a bit, you know. Since he is such a famous poet, I had imagined him as a jovial fellow and a brilliant causeur. But he seems a bit of an old stick, and rather a martinet. He looked ill and worried.’

  ‘Well, what can you expect?’ Chiao Tai asked. ‘Didn’t you tell me that he has only one wife? That’s rather strange, for a man in his position!’

  ‘You shouldn’t call it strange,’ Judge Dee said reprovingly. ‘Magistrate Teng and his wife are an example of conjugal love. Although they have been married eight years and have no children, Teng has never taken secondary wives or concubines. Literary circles in the capital have nicknamed them the Eternal Lovers—not without envy, I presume. His wife, Silver Lotus, is also known for her poetical talent, and that common interest forms a strong bond.’

  ‘She may be good at poetry,’ Chiao Tai observed, ‘but I still think her husband had better add two or three nice young girls to his bedroom furniture, just to get inspiration from, so to speak.’

  Judge Dee had not heard him. His attention had been caught by the conversation going on at the table next to theirs. A fat man with a double chin was saying:

  ‘I still maintain that our magistrate made a mistake during the session this morning. Why should he refuse to register old Ko’s suicide?’

  ‘Well,’ a thin man with a foxy face who sat opposite him said, ‘the body hasn’t been found, you know! No body, no registration! That’s the official mind for you!’

  ‘It stands to reason there’s no body!’ the fat man said crossly. ‘He jumped into the river, didn’t he? And the current is uncommonly fast. Don’t forget the amount of slope it has, the hilly part of the city is quite high. I don’t say anything against our magistrate, mind you, he is one of the best we have had these last years. I only say that, being an official who gets his pay on the dot every month, he doesn’t know a thing about the financial worries of us business people. He doesn’t realize that as long as the suicide hasn’t been registered, Ko’s banker can’t wind up his business. Since old Ko had many affairs outstanding, that delay may mean big losses for the family.’

  The other nodded sagely. Then he asked:

  ‘Do you have any idea why Ko should have killed himself? No financial worries, I hope?’

  ‘Certainly not!’ the fat man said quickly. ‘Sound business, that silk firm of his, the largest in the province, I’d say. He’s had trouble with his health lately, though. That’ll have been the cause. Do you remember that suicide last year of Wang, die tea dealer who always complained of headaches?’

  Judge Dee lost interest. He poured out another cup of tea. Chiao Tai, who had been listening also, whispered:

  ‘Remember that you are on a holiday, Magistrate! And all the dead bodies that may be drifting around here are the exclusive property of your colleague Teng!’

  ‘You are quite right, Chiao Tai! Does that guide-book give a list of jewellers here? I must purchase a few trinkets for my wives back in Penglai, as souvenirs.’

  ‘A list as long as my arm!’ Chiao Tai replied. Hastily leafing through the book he showed the judge a page. Judge Dee nodded and said:

  ‘That’s good, I’ll have plenty to choose from.’ He got up and called the waiter. ‘Let’s go, I got the address of a good hostel, not far from here.’

  The ugly man at the corner table waited till they had paid and gone down into the street. Then he quickly got up and sauntered over to the table they had just left. He casually picked up the guide-book and glanced at the page it lay open at. An evil glint came into his one eye. He threw the book down and hurriedly descended from the terrace. He saw the judge and Chiao Tai standing farther on, apparently inquiring the way from a street vendor.

  Chapter 2

  The Hostel of the Flying Crane was located in a busy street that led up to one of the city’s many hills. Its unpretentious, narrow gate was right next to the gaudy shop front of a large winehouse.

  However, the spacious hall belied the modest exterior. The fat manager who sat enthroned behind an impressive counter gave the two men a searching look. He pushed a thick register over to them and asked them to write their name, personal name, occupation, age, and native place.

  ‘Are you afraid of robbers?’ Judge Dee asked, astonished, as he moistened the writing-brush. As a rule, one registered only one’s name and occupation.

  ‘Nothing of the sort!’ the manager said crossly. Pushing the book over to Chiao Tai he added importantly: ‘My hostel has a high reputation, I can afford to pick my guests!’

  ‘A pity your mother couldn’t pick you!’ Chiao Tai said as he put their clothes bundle on the floor and took the brush. The judge had written ‘Shen Mo, commission agent, 34, from Tai-yuan’ Chiao Tai scrawled next to it: ‘Chou Ta, Mr Shen’s assistant, 30, from the capital.’

  Judge Dee paid three days in advance, and a neatly dressed waiter took them to a simply furnished but very clean room on the third courtyard, far from the noise of the street.

  Chiao Tai pushed the outer door open. It gave directly onto the courtyard, paved with marble flagstones. He turned round and scowled at the teapot which the waiter had just placed on the table. He said to the judge:

  ‘We just had tea. This yard here has a beautiful smooth pavement, what about a few rounds of stick-fencing to stretch our legs? Then we might take a bath, and have dinner in a restaurant outside to sample the local specialities.’

  ‘Excellent idea! The long ride from Pien-foo this morning has made me stiff.’

  Both stripped down to their baggy trousers. Judge Dee parted his long beard into two strands, which he knotted together at the nape of his neck. They threw their caps on the table and walked out into the courtyard. Chiao Tai shouted at a groom who was standing about there to fetch two fencing sticks.

  The judge was an excellent boxer and swordsman, but he had only recently taken up, under Chiao Tai’s guidance, the art of stick-fencing. This was not considered a sport suitable for gentlemen, being popular only among highway robbers and vagabonds. But Judge Dee found it a good exercise and had become quite fond of it. Chiao Tai was expert at this art, for before entering Judge Dee’s service he had been a highwayman, as attested by the numerous scars that covered his broad, deeply tanned chest and his long, muscular arms. One year before, when the judge was on his way to Penglai, his first post, Chiao Tai and his blood-brother Ma Joong had attacked him on a lonely road. But Judge Dee’s forceful personality had so impressed the two men that they had then and there given up their violent profession, and became his devoted lieutenants. In the past year the judge had found this formidable pair very useful for arresting dangerous criminals and executing other difficult tasks. He gladly made allowance for the fact that they had not yet quite acquired the respectful attitude becoming to a magistrate’s lieutenants; he rather enjoyed their frank and outspoken manner.

  ‘I take it that the manager won’t mind us fencing here’ Judge Dee said as he took up his stance.

  ‘One peep out of him and I’ll smash his head
down into his fat belly!’ Chiao Tai shouted belligerently. ‘Then he can squint at the world through his navel. Mind your backhand swing now!’ He went for the judge with a quick blow at his head.

  Judge Dee ducked and aimed a long sweeping blow close along the floor at Chiao Tai’s ankles. But Chiao Tai jumped over the stick with a supple grace surprising in so heavy a man, and followed up with a swift thrust at Judge Dee’s breast which the latter skilfully parried.

  For a long time one heard only the clattering of the sticks and the panting of the fencers. Soon a few grooms and waiters gathered in the yard, watching the fight. Intent on this free entertainment, they did not notice that the door behind them was slowly pulled open to a crack. A very thin and ugly man peered round it and watched the two fencers with one glaring eye. He stood there for quite a while, a queer, gangling figure, melting into the shadow behind him. Then he stepped back and closed the door noiselessly.

  When the two men stopped, their torsos were dripping with sweat. Chiao Tai threw the sticks to a groom and ordered him to take them to the bath.

  There were no other bathers in the large, airy room. It had two pools surrounded by a rail of solid logs of polished pinewood, left its natural colour. The walls were made of the same material, which filled the bathroom with a pleasant out-door scent. The floor was paved with large black tiles. The sturdy attendant, wearing only a loin cloth, took their trousers and hung them on the rack. Then he gave each a small cotton bag filled with a mixture of chaff and lye, and a round tub with hot water. Judge Dee and Chiao Tai scrubbed themselves with the soap-bags. When the attendant was throwing buckets of hot water over them he said:

  ‘You’ll like the pool, it has been hewn right from the rock this inn is built on. The hot water comes from the spring underneath. Mind your feet—the stones in the left corner are burning hot.’

  The two men stepped over the rail and went down into the pool. The attendant pushed the sliding doors open so that they could enjoy the view of the green banana leaves in the small walled-in garden outside. For a good while Judge Dee and Chiao Tai let themselves soak contentedly in the hot water. Then they sat on the low bamboo bench and had the attendant massage their shoulders, and rub their bodies dry. He gave them linen jackets, and they walked back to their room, completely refreshed.

  They had just changed into their own robes and sat down for a cup of tea, when the door opened and a thin, one-eyed man stepped inside.

  ‘That’s the rascal we saw in the teahouse!’ Chiao Tai exclaimed.

  Judge Dee looked annoyed at the repulsive face. He said sourly:

  ‘One usually knocks before entering a room. What do you want?’

  ‘Just a few words with you, Mr…Shen.’

  ‘What’s your business?’ the judge asked. He couldn’t place this weird man at all.

  ‘Practically the same as yours! I am a professional thief.’

  ‘Shall I kick him out?’ Chiao Tai asked angrily.

  ‘Wait!’ Judge Dee said. He was curious to know what all this meant. ‘Since you know my name, my friend, you must also know that I am a commission agent.’

  The other laughed scornfully.

  ‘Shall I tell you what you really are, the pair of you?.’

  ‘Please do!’ the judge said affably.

  ‘Do you want the whole story?’ the one-eyed man asked again.

  ‘Certainly!’ Judge Dee said. The man was intriguing him.

  ‘First, as to you with your beard and your smug face, you smell of the tribunal. Since you are a strong fellow, you must be a former headman of constables. You tortured an innocent prisoner to death, you filched money from the cashbox, or both. Anyway, you had to flee and you took to the road. Your mate is of course a professional highway robber. You work together, you with your solemn face and oily speech strike up acquaintance with unwary travellers, and your mate knocks them down. Now you two have decided you will go for bigger things, and you came down to the city to rob a jewellery shop. But let me tell you two country bumpkins that you’ll never get anywhere in the city. Even a child can see that you are crooks!’

  Chiao Tai wanted to get up but Judge Dee raised his hand. ‘The fellow is quite entertaining!’ he said. ‘Tell me, what makes you think that we want to commit a burglary in this city?’

  The ugly man sighed.

  ‘All right!’ he said with exaggerated patience. ‘I’ll give you a lesson, gratis, for nothing! This afternoon, when that bully there entered the teahouse, I recognized him of course immediately as a highway robber. His build, the way he walks, even I with my one eye could see that. He probably is originally an army deserter, by the way. There’s a soldier like air in the way he carries his shoulders. Then you arrived, I first thought you were a dismissed court clerk. Later I watched you stick-fencing—and damned fools you were to give yourselves away like that!—and I noticed that you also are a hefty bully, but that your skin is white and smooth. So I corrected myself, and placed you as a headman on the run. Well, as if all that were not yet enough, you announced yourselves as strangers by studying a guide-book of this town, and gloated together over the list of jewellers. So you see what beginners you are. I only wonder why you grew that dirty beard. To ape your magistrate, I suppose!’

  ‘The fellow ceases to amuse me!’ Judge Dee said calmly to Chiao Tai. ‘Throw him out!’

  Chiao Tai jumped up, but he was not quick enough. Like a flash of lightning the thin man had turned to the door, opened it and slipped through, closing it in Chiao Tai’s face so that he bumped his head against the wooden panel. He cursed heartily and jerked the door open again. ‘I’ll get that son of a dog!’ he growled.

  ‘Halt!’ Judge Dee called out. ‘Come back! We can’t have a scene here!’

  As Chiao Tai sat down again, angrily rubbing his forehead, the judge continued with a faint smile:

  ‘That insolent rascal was useful in so far as he reminded me of an important rule which a detector of crimes should always keep in mind. And that is that one should never let oneself be tempted to ding stubbornly to one theory. This is a clever and observant scoundrel. His reasoning about our identity was neatly done. But, once he had established his theory, he adapted every new fact to it, instead of testing whether those new facts should not make him revise his theory. He should have realized that our stick-fencing out in the open here could also mean that our position is so secure that we can indulge freely in activities that in others would raise suspicion. Well, I should be the last to criticize, though, for I made exactly the same mistake when I was investigating the gold murders in Penglai!’

  ‘The bastard followed us from the teahouse!’ Chiao Tai said. ‘Why did he seek us out? He wouldn’t have thought he could blackmail us, would he?’

  ‘I hardly think so,’ Judge Dee replied. ‘He impresses me as a man who relies entirely on his wit and who is mortally afraid of physical violence. Well, we’ll never see him again! By the way, your mentioning the teahouse reminds me of those bits of conversation we overheard on the terrace there* About that queer suicide of a silk merchant called Ko, you remember? Let’s stroll over to the tribunal and hear what it is all about. It’s about time for the afternoon session to start.’

  ‘Magistrate, you are on a holiday!’ Chiao Tai said reproachfully.

  ‘Yes, I am!’ Judge Dee said with a bleak smile. ‘But I must confess that I would like to see a bit more of my colleague Teng, without him knowing it. Further, I have presided over a tribunal so often that I would like to see the proceedings from the other side of the bench, for once. It’ll be an instructive experience, for you also, my friend! On our way!’

  In the hall the fat manager was busy adding up the bill of four merchants who were leaving. He had wound a white cloth round his sweating brow, and was industriously clicking the beads of his abacus. But he wasn’t too busy to say, as the judge passed the counter:

  ‘Behind the Temple of the War God you’ll find a terrain especially reserved for physical exercise, Mr Shen.�
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  ‘Thank you,’ the judge said primly, ‘but I prefer to avail myself of the facilities offered by this hospitable inn.’

  They went outside.

  The two men made slow progress, for it had grown a little cooler, and a dense crowd was about. But when they crossed the open square in front of the tribunal compound, they saw no one near the gatehouse. Apparently the session had started already and the spectators were assembled in the court hall. They passed underneath the stone archway of the gatehouse, where hung the huge bronze gong that announced the beginning of each court session. The four guards sitting on the bench eyed them indifferently.

  They hurriedly ran across the empty main courtyard and entered the shadowy hall. From far in the back they heard a monotonous voice droning a lengthy statement. The two men remained standing just inside the door, letting their eyes adjust themselves to the half darkness. Over the heads, of the crowd of spectators standing together farther down, they saw against the back wall the high bench, covered with scarlet cloth, standing on a raised dais. Behind it was enthroned Magistrate Teng, resplendent in his official robe of shimmering green brocade, and wearing the black judge’s cap, its two stiffened wings standing out on either side of his head. He seemed engrossed in the document in front of him, slowly tugging at his thin goatee. Counsellor Fan stood by the side of his chair, his hands folded in his sleeves. The magistrate’s bench was flanked by two lower tables where the court clerks were sitting. Behind the one on the right stood a grey-haired man, evidently the senior scribe, reading aloud a legal document. The entire back wall of the hall was covered by a dark-violet screen-curtain. In its centre the large image of a unicorn, the symbol of perspicacity, was beautifully embroidered in gold thread.

  Judge Dee went on and joined the crowd of spectators. Raising himself on tiptoe he could see four constables standing in front of the bench, carrying iron chains, clubs, hand screws and the other terrifying paraphernalia of their office. Their headman, a squat brutish-looking man with a thin ringbeard, stood somewhat apart, fingering a heavy whip. As usual everything in the tribunal was calculated to impress the public with the majesty of the law, and the awful consequences of getting involved with it. Everyone appearing there, old and young, rich and poor, and no matter whether complainant or accused, had to kneel on the bare stone floor in front of the bench, shouted at by the constables and, if the magistrate ordered so, cruelly beaten on the spot. For the fundamental rule of justice was that everyone appearing before the bench was considered guilty until he was able to prove his innocence.