The Lacquer Screen

XVIII

The old steward came to meet him, and led him to the library.

Magistrate Teng had changed into an informal robe. He invited the judge to sit down next to him on the broad bench, and told the steward he could go. The scene reminded Judge Dee of their first meeting there. While the magistrate was pouring out a cup for Judge Dee, he noticed that his guest looked at the empty side wall where the lacquer screen had stood. He said with a sad smile:

'I had the screen removed to the store-room. You'll under­stand, it reminded me too much of . . .'

Judge Dee abruptly set down his teacup. He said sharply:

'Spare me, I pray you, a repetition of that tale of the lacquer screen! Once is enough!'

Teng looked, dumbfounded, at Judge Dee's impassive face. Then he asked:

'What on earth do you mean by that remark, Dee?'

'Exactly what I said,' the judge replied coldly. 'It was a nice, sentimental tale, and you told it well. I was quite touched, the other night. But it's a fantasy from beginning to end, of course. Your late wife had only one sister, not three — to mention only one small matter.'

Magistrate Teng's face went livid. His lips moved, but no sound came forth. Judge Dee rose and walked over to the open window. His hands behind his back, he looked at the waving bamboos in the garden outside. Then, keeping his back turned to Teng, he spoke:

'Your story of the lacquer screen was as fantastic as the one about your love for your wife, Silver Lotus. You love only one person, Teng, and that is yourself. And your fame as a poet, of course. You are an extremely conceited and utterly selfish man, but you never suffered from any attacks of insanity. I suspect, however, that nature stunted you in another manner. Since you remained childless and never took other wives or concubines, you utilized your defect for building up your false reputation as the "eternal lover". I hate adulterous women, but I'll say for your wife that her life with you must have been very unhappy.'

The judge paused. He heard only the heavy breathing of the magistrate behind him.

'One day,' he resumed, 'you began to suspect that your wife had adulterous relations with the young painter Leng Te. She must have first met him at the country house of her elder sister. I assume that they were drawn to each other by the fact that both of them were living under a dark shadow — he knew that he hadn't long to live, and she was married to a cold and cruel husband. You had to be sure, so you followed them secretly to their rendezvous in the house near the west gate, and spied on them. You had covered your face with your neck-cloth, but the woman in charge there remembered your limp. Pan Yoo-te had told me that at about that time you had sprained your ankle. That temporary limp was a good disguise, for it would distract attention from your other features, yet disappear as soon as it was healed. I had forgotten all about it, but last night my assistant Chiao Tai made a remark about Kun-shan's broken ankle, and then I remembered what Pan had told me, and the truth dawned on me.

'The chastity of women is the basis and fundament of our sacred social order, and the law prescribes death for both the adulterous woman and her paramour. Having caught the pair in the act, you could have killed them then and there. Or you could have denounced them to the Prefect, and both would have been decapitated. But your conceit prevented you from taking either of those courses. You couldn't bear to see the carefully built picture of the "eternal lovers" destroyed, you couldn't bear it to become known that your wife had deceived you. You decided to say nothing, but to prepare a scheme to kill your wife without it becoming known that you did so to take revenge for her infidelity, and which would confirm rather than destroy the image of the "eternal lovers" — and all that without running the risk of being prosecuted for murder, of course. Your grandfather's mental disease and the lacquer screen gave you the idea. It was a very clever idea, Teng. You must have brooded over it many an evening, sitting alone in your library here. Perhaps at the same time your wife was meeting her lover in her sister's villa, but that didn't bother you. For you didn't care a pin for her. On the contrary, I think you hated her, be­cause she was a really great poetess, Teng, and you stole your best lines from her work. You were jealous of her talent, and therefore you prevented her from having her poetry published. But I saw her own manuscript copy, and I tell you that you'll never reach that sublime height, Teng.

'You thought out an excellent story. It had all the requirements for becoming a famous tale, told and retold in literary circles all over the Empire, with admiration and sympathy. There was an old family curse, there was a haunting antique screen, there was romance — I for one started by believing every word of it, and I was deeply moved. If all had gone according to plan, you would have killed your wife in a carefully staged fit of insanity. Then you would have denounced yourself to the Prefect, who of course would have acquitted you. You could have retired on a pension and devoted the rest of your life to building up further your fame as a poet. You have no interest in women, so you wouldn't remarry, you would mourn faithfully for your wife till the end of your days.

'I don't doubt that you had an equally ingenious plan for taking revenge on Leng Te. But he died before you could execute that scheme. You gloated over your wife's despair. I hear that the last two weeks you have been exceptionally cheerful, while your wife became ill.

'Kun-shan murdered your wife. She never knew what happened to her, and she died in peace. You entered the dressing-room just after Kun-shan had emptied the full con­tents of his infernal blowpipe there, and the drug over­powered you. When you came to, you thought it had been you who had killed her. That didn't particularly distress you. You then became frantic only because you assumed that too much brooding over your scheme had ended up by really affecting your brain. That priceless brain of the great poet ! You were so worried about yourself that when I came unexpectedly to see you, you didn't have the presence of mind to put into operation your scheme of the lacquer screen. In your confusion you told the steward that stupid he about your wife having gone to visit her sister, and you got rid of me as quickly as possible. However, after the session, when you had calmed down, you realized that my arrival in Wei-ping was a godsend. You now had a witness to confirm your story of the lacquer screen, a colleague who would go with you to the Prefect and whose testimony would lend even more colour to the tragedy. So you sent your headman to summon me, to hear your touching con­fession.'

'But I couldn't be found. In the state of mind you were in, that disappointment unduly disturbed you. You began again to doubt your own sanity, and the soundness of your scheme. The servants began to wonder about the locked bedroom. The presence of the dead body there began to haunt you. Thus you took the foolish step of removing your wife's body to the marsh, without even examining it.'

'Late that night I finally did come. You told your story with relish, and your confidence returned. But to your great disappointment I then began to talk about unclarified points, hinting at the possibility that you had not killed your wife. Nothing could have been more unwelcome to you! Then, however, you remembered that, since you had made the mistake of removing the body, I might perhaps hit on a good idea for glossing over that blunder. Therefore you consented to postpone our visit to the Prefect, and gave me a free hand to try to locate the real killer — convinced as you were that there was no such person.

'Now everything has turned out very well indeed for you. It's true that you don't have the satisfaction of having killed your wife yourself, but on the other hand now you'll be even more of a tragic hero. Your beloved wife was brutally murdered! I don't doubt that in the coming years your name as a poet will grow steadily. The tale of the lacquer screen is off, but that of the inconsolable lover will do nicely too. Your poetry won't become better, but people will say that's because of the cruel blow that shattered your happi­ness. Everybody will pity you and praise your work even more highly than before. I wouldn't be astonished if you became the Empire's leading poet, Teng!'

Judge Dee paused. Then he concluded in a tired voice:

'That's all I wanted to say to you, Teng. Of course I shall keep all I discovered about you a deep secret, for ever. Only don't expect that I shall ever read your poetry again!'

There was a long pause. The judge heard only the rustling of the green bamboo leaves in the garden outside. At last Magistrate Teng spoke:

'You wrong me deeply, Dee. It is not true that I didn't love my wife. I loved her dearly. It was only the fact that offspring was denied to me that cast a shadow over my happiness. Her adultery was a cruel blow that broke my heart. In fact, it brought me to the verge of insanity. It was during those fits of brooding in the deepest despair that I evolved that horrible tale of the lacquer screen. Since, as you yourself stated just now, although I had the full right to kill my wife I didn't do so, and since Kun-shan's con­fession has closed the case, it was quite unnecessary and wholly superfluous for you to speak to me as you did now. Even though you knew that the story about the lacquer screen was not true, you ought to have had pity on a dis­illusioned man, and not have exposed all my shortcomings and weaknesses as cruelly and sneeringly as you did just now. I am deeply disappointed in you, Dee, for you were always described to me as a charitable and just man. It is not charitable to humiliate and debase me just in order to show off your own cleverness. And it is not just to vilify me, alleging that I hated my wife, justifying your completely unwarranted meddling in my private life by fantastic deduc­tions which lack all concrete proof.'

Judge Dee turned round to face his host. Fixing him with his piercing eyes, he said coldly:

'I never accuse anyone without concrete proof. Your first visit to the house near the west gate was fully justified, for you had to verify the adultery. Had you then rushed inside and killed them both on the spot, or run off and killed your­self, or done Heaven knows what other desperate deed, I would have believed that you loved your wife, or at least would have given you the benefit of the doubt But you went back to the house and spied on them a second time. That reveals your depraved character, and supplies all the con­crete proof I need. Good-bye!'

The judge bowed and left.

He found Chiao Tai waiting for him in the courtyard of the tribunal, holding two horses by the reins.

'Are we really going back to Peng-lai, Magistrate?' he asked. 'You have been here only two days, you know!'

'Long enough,' Judge Dee said curtly. He swung him­self into the saddle and they rode out into the street.

They left the city by the south gate. As they were riding along the sandy highway, the judge heard something crackle in his sleeve. Guiding his horse with his knees, he felt for it and found it was the paper folder with the last of his red visiting-cards inscribed 'Shen Mo, Commission Agent'. He tore it into small pieces. He looked for a moment at the red scraps in the hollow of his hand, then threw them away.

They fluttered for a while behind his horse, then slowly sank down together with the settling dust.