Poets and Murder

VII

Entering the main gate of the residence, Judge Dee halted in his steps and cast an astonished look at the disreputable figure standing at the door of his own quarters. It was a short, obese man in an old, patched monk's habit, his round, shaven head bare. He wore large, worn-out straw sandals on his feet. Won­dering how a beggar could have gained entrance to the resi­dence, the judge stepped up to him and asked curtly:

'What do you want here?'

The other turned round. Fixing the judge with his large, protruding eyes, he replied gruffly:

'Ha, Magistrate Dee! Went to look in on you for a moment or two, but there was no answer to my knocking.' His voice was hoarse, but he spoke like an educated man, and with authority. Suddenly Judge Dee understood.

'Glad to meet you, Sexton Loo. Magistrate Lo told me that ...'

'Decide later whether you're glad to have met me or not, Dee!’ the sexton interrupted. He was staring past the judge with his unblinking eyes. Involuntarily the judge looked over his shoulder. The courtyard was deserted.

'No, you can't see them, Judge. Not yet. Don't let it worry you. The dead are always with us. Everywhere.'

Judge Dee gave him a long look. The ugly man vaguely dis­turbed him. Why should Lo ...?

'You're wondering why Lo should've invited me, eh, Dee? The answer is that I am a poet. A writer of couplets, rather. My poems never contain more than two lines. You won't have read them, Dee. You're interested in official files!’ He pointed with his thick forefinger at the dossier the judge was carry­ing.

'Let's go inside, sir, and have a cup of tea,' Judge Dee pro­posed, politely opening the door for him.

'No, thank you. I must fetch something from my room, then go out on an errand downtown.'

'Where are your quarters here in the compound, sir?'

'I stay in the fox shrine, right corner of the main court­yard.'

'Yes, Lo told me there was such a shrine here,' the judge said with a faint smile.

'Why shouldn't Magistrate Lo maintain a fox shrine, pray?' the sexton asked belligerently. 'Foxes are an integral part of universal life, Dee. Their world is as important or unimportant as ours. And just as there exist special affinities between two human beings, so some human beings are linked to a special animal. Don't forget that the signs of the zodiac that influence our destinies consist of animals, Judge!’ He studied Judge Dee's face intently, rubbing his stubbly cheeks. Suddenly he asked, 'You were born in the year of the Tiger, weren't you?' When the judge nodded, the sexton's thick lips curved in a smirking grin that gave his ugly face a toad-like appearance. 'A tiger and a fox! Couldn't be better!’ Abruptly his heavy features slackened; deep lines showed beside his fleshy nose. 'You'd better look sharp, Dee!’ he said in a dull voice. "There was one murder here last night, I hear, and things are shaping up for a second murder. That file under your arm is marked Yoo-lan, and she has a death sentence hanging over her head. Soon there'll be more dead walking with you, Dee!’ He raised his large round head and again looked past the judge, a strange glint in his bulging eyes.

Judge Dee shivered involuntarily. He wanted to speak, but the sexton resumed, in his former querulous, rasping voice:

'Don't expect any help from me, Judge. I consider human justice a paltry makeshift, and I shan't lift a finger to catch a murderer! Murderers catch themselves. Run around in circles even narrower than those of others. Never escape. See you tonight, Dee!'

He marched off, his straw sandals making a flapping sound on the court's pavement.

The judge looked after him, then quickly went inside, irritated at his own discomfiture.

The servants had drawn the curtains of the canopied bed­stead in the rear of his room. He noticed with satisfaction the large padded tea-basket on the centre table, beside the tall pewter candlestick. Standing at the dressing-table, he rubbed his face and neck with the scented towel the servants had put ready in the brass basin. This made him feel better. Sexton Loo was just an eccentric, and such people liked to make extra­vagant statements. He pushed the table close to the open sliding-doors, and sat down facing his rock garden. Then he opened the dossier.

On top was Lo's biographical note on the poetess, about twenty folio sheets. It was an ably written account, so care­fully phrased that the judge suspected that Lo planned to append it to his edition of Yoo-lan's poetical works. It stated all the relevant facts, sketching the background in veiled terms that could not give offence, but left no doubt about what was meant. After he had read the account carefully, the judge leaned back in his chair. Folding his arms, he went over in his mind Yoo-lan's checkered career.

The poetess was the only daughter of a small drug-shop clerk in the capital, a self-educated amateur of literature, who had taught her to read and write when she was only five years old. He was a bad financier, however. When she was fifteen, he had got so deeply in debt that he had to sell her to a famous brothel. During the four years she spent there, she assiduously cultivated old and young men of letters, and through these liaisons made rapid progress in all the elegant arts, showing a particular talent for poetry. At nineteen, when she was well on the way to becoming a fully-fledged, popular courtesan, she suddenly disappeared. The guild of brothel-keepers sent out their best men to find her, for she represented a considerable investment, but they failed to trace her. Two years later she was discovered by accident in a low-class hostel up-country, destitute and ill. The man who found her was the young poet Wen Tung-yang, famous for his cutting wit, his good looks, and his vast inherited wealth. He had met her in the capital, and was still in love with her. He paid off all her debts, and she became his inseparable companion. No elegant gathering in the capital was deemed complete without the presence of Wen and Yoo-lan. Wen published a collection of poems they had written for each other, and these were cited in literary milieus all over the country. The pair travelled extensively, visiting all the famous scenic spots of the Empire, welcomed everywhere by famous men of letters, and often staying on for months in a place that caught their fancy. Their association lasted four years. Then Wen suddenly left her, having fallen in love with an itinerant female acrobat.

Yoo-lan left the capital for Szuchuan, where she used the generous parting present Wen had given her to purchase a beautiful country place. There she settled down with a bevy of maids and singing-girls, and her villa became the centre of intellectual and artistic life in that remote province. She granted her favours to carefully selected admirers only, all prominent men of letters and high officials who showered her with costly presents. Arrived at that point, Magistrate Lo hadn't been able to resist the temptation of quoting the hack­neyed line, 'Each of her poems was valued at one thousand ounces of gold'. Lo also mentioned that Yoo-lan had a number of close girl friends, and some of her best poems were addressed to them. Read in connection with the fact that after a couple of years she had to leave Szuchuan abruptly because of com­plications caused by one of her students, the daughter of a local Prefect, the implication was obvious.

After having left Szuchuan, the poetess changed her way of life completely. She bought the White Heron Monastery, a small Taoist shrine in the beautiful Lake District, and called herself a Taoist nun. She kept only one maidservant, no man was allowed inside, and she wrote only religious poetry. She had always spent her money as freely as she made it, and on leaving Szuchuan she had paid extravagant severance bonuses to all members of her numerous suite. The remainder she had invested in the purchase of the White Heron Monastery. But she was still considered well-to-do, for the notables living in that region paid her well for teaching poetry to their daugh­ters. There Lo's biography ended. 'Please refer to the attached judicial documents,' he had written at the end of the page.

Judge Dee righted himself and quickly leafed through the bundle of legal documents. With his practised eye it took him little time to pick out the main facts. Two months before, in late spring, the constables of the local tribunal had suddenly entered the White Heron Monastery, and started digging under the cherry tree in the back garden. They found the naked body of Yoo-lan's maidservant, a girl of seventeen. The autopsy showed that she must have died only three days pre­viously, from a cruel whipping that had lacerated her entire body. Yoo-lan was arrested, and accused of wilful murder. She scornfully denied the accusation. Three days previously, she said, the maid had asked for one week's leave to visit her aged parents, and she left after she had prepared the evening rice for her mistress. That was the last the poetess had seen of her. After she had taken her meal, she had gone out for a long walk along the edge of the lake, alone. When she came back one hour before midnight, she discovered that the garden gate had been forced, and upon checking found the two silver candlesticks in the monastery's chapel missing. She reminded the magistrate that the very next morning she had reported the theft to his tribunal. She suggested that the maid, having come back to the monastery because she had forgotten some­thing, had surprised the robbers. They tried to make her tell where her mistress's money was, and the maid succumbed under the torture.

Then the magistrate heard a number of witnesses, who testi­fied that the poetess had often quarrelled violently with the maid, and that they had heard the maid scream sometimes at night. The monastery was located in an unfrequented neigh­bourhood, but a few pedlars had passed there on the fateful night, and they had not seen a trace of robbers or vagabonds. The magistrate declared Yoo-lan's defence a pack of lies, accus­ing her of having forced the garden gate herself and thrown the silver candlesticks into a well. Referring also to her lurid past, he was about to propose the death sentence, when armed robbers attacked a farmstead in the vicinity and cruelly hacked the farmer and his wife to pieces. The magistrate postponed judgement on Yoo-lan, and sent out his men to apprehend the robbers, who might prove Yoo-lan's story true. In the meantime the news of the arrest of the famous poetess had spread far and wide, and the Prefect ordered the case trans­ferred to his own tribunal.

The Prefect's energetic investigation — he was an admirer of Yoo-lan's poetry — brought to light two points in her favour. First, it transpired that the magistrate had tried to obtain Yoo-lan's favours the year before, and that she had refused him. The magistrate admitted this but denied that the fact had influenced his dealing with the case. He had received an anonymous letter stating that a corpse was buried under the cherry tree, and he had deemed it his duty to verify that allegation. The Prefect ruled that the magistrate had been pre­judiced, and temporarily suspended him from his duties. Second, the military police caught a robber who until a few weeks previously had been a member of the band that attacked the farmstead. He stated that their leader had talked about the poetess having a hoard of gold in the monastery, and added that it would be worth while having a look around there some time. This seemed to bear out Yoo-lan's theory about the murder. On the basis of these facts the Prefect passed the case on to the provincial tribunal, recommending acquittal of the accused.

The Governor, flooded with letters from high-placed per­sons all over the Empire in favour of the poetess, was about to give a verdict of not guilty, when a young water-carrier from the Lake District came forward. He had been absent for several weeks, accompanying an uncle on a journey to the family graves. He had been the maid's boy friend, and stated that she had often told him that her mistress importuned her, and beat her when she refused. The Governor's doubts were strengthened by the fact that the maid had been found to be a virgin. He reasoned that if robbers had murdered the maid, they would certainly have raped her first. He instructed the military police to search the entire province for the robbers who had attacked the farmstead, for their testimony was of course of vital importance. But all efforts to track the band down were in vain. Neither could the writer of the anony­mous letter be traced. The Governor thought he had better wash his hands of this ticklish case, and referred it to the Metropolitan Court.

Judge Dee closed the dossier, arose from the table and went out on to the gallery. A cool autumn breeze rustled in the bamboos of the rockery, promising a fine evening.

Yes, his colleague had been right. It certainly was an inter­esting case. Disturbing, rather. He pensively tugged at his moustache. Magistrate Lo had described it as a purely theore­tical puzzle. But his wily colleague had known very well, of course, that it would present him, the judge, with a personal challenge. And now his meeting with the poetess had linked him directly with her case, squarely confronting him with the question: guilty or not guilty?

The judge began to pace the gallery, his hands clasped behind his back. Secondary information was all he had on this disturbing, frustrating case. Suddenly the ugly, toad-like face of the sexton rose before his mind's eye. That strange monk had reminded him that for the poetess this was a question of life or death. He was dimly conscious of a feeling of uneasi­ness, an inexplicable sense of foreboding. Perhaps he would rid himself of his vague discomfiture, if he tackled the dossier again and went over all the verbatim witness accounts. It was only five o'clock, so he still had two hours or so before the dinner would begin. Somehow or other, however, he didn't feel like resuming his study of the legal documents. He thought he would postpone that task till he had had a longer talk with the poetess, at dinner. Then he would listen also to what the Academician and the Court Poet had to say to her, try to gauge their attitude to the problem of her guilt. Suddenly the gay dinner party promised by his colleague took on the macabre significance of a court of justice, deli­berating a death sentence. Now he had a distinct premonition of impending danger.

Trying to dispel these disquieting thoughts, he reviewed in his mind the murder of the student, Soong. That also was a frustrating case. He had taken part in the investigation of the scene of the crime, but now he could do nothing, had to depend entirely on what Lo's men would bring to light. There again he would have to work with second-hand information.

Suddenly the judge halted in his steps. His bushy eyebrows creased in a deep frown; he reflected for a while. He went inside, and took the booklet with Soong's musical score from the table. Apart from the student's historical notes, this was the only direct link with the dead man. Again he leafed through its closely written pages. Suddenly he smiled. It was a long shot, but it was worth trying! At any rate it would be better than sitting and moping here in his room, poring over statements by all kinds of persons he had never set eyes upon.

The judge quickly changed into a simple blue gown. Having put a small black skull-cap on his head, he went out­side, the book under his arm.