The Lacquer Screen

IV

Chiao Tai cursed violently. He said sourly:

'I do hope you have a good reason for all this, Magistrate ! For let me warn you that, in spite of its poetical name, that inn over there must be the headquarters of the boss of the underworld here!'

'I am certain it is just that,' Judge Dee said calmly. 'If we find that the Corporal is involved in some dirty scheme together with our one-eyed friend, we'll at least discover what is behind their interest in us, and if necessary fight our way out. If not, then the Corporal and his crowd are exactly the people I need for solving a queer problem that is rather worrying me. In any case we'll begin by acting the part Mr Kun-shan so kindly assigned to us, namely that of highway robbers. Come on!'

Chiao Tai grinned. Tightening his belt he said:

'Maybe we'll have a good fight there!'

They walked on to the house, a ramshackle two-storeyed building of wooden boards. Through the lighted window came the sound of rough voices. When Chiao Tai knocked on the door, the murmur within suddenly ceased. The grated peephole opened and a gruff voice asked:

'Who is it?'

'Two men coming for the Corporal!' Chiao Tai growled.

There was the sound of a crossbar being removed. A slovenly clad man let them inside a large, low-ceilinged room that smelled of stale sweat and cheap liquor. It was dimly lit by one smoking oil-lamp. The fellow was apparently the waiter, for he went straight to the high counter in the rear. Ensconced behind it he moodily looked the two men over, then muttered:

'The boss hasn't come yet.'

'We'll wait!' the judge said and walked over to a small table by the window. He sat down heavily on the chair facing the room. Chiao Tai seated himself opposite, scowled over his shoulder at the waiter and shouted:

'Two wine here. Of the best!'

Four men who had been gambling at the larger table in the far corner near the counter eyed them suspiciously for a while, then resumed their game. A slatternly young woman who stood at the counter looked them up and down with an insolent stare. She wore a long black skirt and a red sash round her waist, and on top a loose dark-green jacket that left her shapely bosom bare. A wilted red rose was stuck in her hair. Her scrutiny completed, she began to whisper to the youngster next to her. He had a rather handsome but dis­solute face. The young man shrugged, pushed the girl roughly away, and turned round to watch the gambling, leaning his back against the counter.

One of the gamblers, a thin man with a ragged moustache, let the dice rattle in the coconut shell, then threw. He announced in a sing-song voice:

'A pair of fours, four cross-eyed whores!'

The next, a broad-shouldered, completely bald man scooped up the dice. After he had thrown them he shouted with a curse:

'A three and a six! The damned luck I am having to­night!'

'You must try to play the game more often!' the young­ster at the counter sneered.

'Shut up, Student!' the bald man growled. The fourth player threw the dice. Slamming his hand on the table he called out:

'A pair of eights, two leaking crates, they walked the street, and still found mates! The pool is for me!'

The waiter placed two wine-cups on Judge Dee's table. 'That'll be six coppers!' he said in a surly voice.

The judge laboriously counted out four coppers on the table. 'I never pay more than two apiece,' he announced.

'Halve the difference or clear out!' the waiter said.

Judge Dee gave him an additional copper. As the man went, the judge said loudly to Chiao Tai: 'The dirty crook!'

The waiter turned round angrily.

'Want to make something of that, bastard? ' Chiao Tai asked invitingly. The waiter decided not to take up the chal­lenge.

Loud curses came from the other end of the room. The bald man shouted at the youngster:

'Keep out of our game, I tell you! You're too green even to steal from a monk's almsbowl, you don't even have a few coppers to gamble with. Keep your trap shut, Mister Student!'

'The only cash the runt has is what the wench here gives to him,' the second gambler remarked. And, to the Student : 'If the Corporal gets to know about that, you're in for it, dirty pimp!'

The young man went for him with balled fists. But before he had reached the speaker, the bald gambler had stopped him with a hard blow to his stomach that made him reel back gasping against the counter. The four gamblers guf­fawed. The girl uttered a cry and ran over to the youngster. She kept her arm round his shoulders while he vomited into the spittoon. When he had righted himself, his face deadly pale, she clutched at his sleeve and whispered something. 'Leave me alone, you stupid slut!' he panted. Then he slapped her face. She went behind the counter and began to sob, hiding her face in her sleeve.

'Pleasant company!' Judge Dee remarked to Chiao Tai. The latter was looking sadly at the wine-cup in his hand. He muttered:

'This is even worse than the rotgut I got at the street stall!' Then he turned round and watched the girl for a while. She had now wiped her face and was leaning on the counter, staring straight ahead. 'If you'd scrape off all that rouge and powder,' Chiao Tai remarked judiciously, 'she wouldn't be a bad-looking wench. Good figure, anyway.'

The young man had recovered. Suddenly he pulled a knife from his belt. But the waiter reached out over the counter, grabbed his hand from behind and gave it a quick twist. The knife clattered to the floor. 'You know the boss doesn't want knife-fighting, runt!' the waiter told him placidly.

The bald man had risen and picked up the knife. Now he raked the youngster's face with a nasty back-hand blow. The Student's face was suddenly covered with blood.

'So you've been in a knife fight already today, eh?' the bald man said with satisfaction. 'They gave you a good cut across your forehead. Children shouldn't play with knives!'

Two hard knocks resounded on the door.

'That's the boss!' the bald man said and went quickly to open.

A squat, hulking man came in. He had a broad, coarse face with a ragged ringbeard and a short, bristling moustache. His greying hair was bound up with a piece of cloth, and he wore wide blue trousers and a kind of waistcoat that left his deep, hairy chest and muscular arms bare. He ignored the bald man's respectful greeting and walked straight to the counter, without looking right or left.

'A large bowl, from my special jar!' he barked at the waiter. 'Just had a little affair, a narrow squeeze, I tell you! How can a man make a decent living in this blooming town? Everywhere you run into those rats from the tribunal!' He gulped down the wine, smacked his lips and shouted at the girl: 'Don't stand there blubbering, wench!' And, to the waiter: 'Give her a drink too, mate! Life ain't always easy for her either!'

THE TAPROOM OF THE PHOENIX INN

His eyes fell on the young man, who was wiping the blood off his face. 'What's wrong with the Student?' the Corporal asked.

'He drew a knife on me, boss!' the bald man said.

'He did, did he? Come here, runt!'

As the frightened youngster came up to him with lagging steps, the Corporal gave him a contemptuous look and asked with a sneer:

'So you like knife-fighting, eh? All right, show me what you can do!'

A long, gleaming knife appeared in the Corporal's hand. With his left he grabbed the Student's collar. The waiter ducked under the counter, but the girl leaned over quickly and laid her hand on the Corporal's shoulder.

'Let him go, please I' she cried out desperately.

The Corporal shook his shoulder free. He had now seen the two men by the window. He pushed the trembling Student roughly out of his way, stepped forward and ex­claimed: 'Holy Heaven! Who's the beard?'

' Strangers, boss!' the Student said obsequiously. 'Just came in.'

The waiter popped up again behind the counter. He said venomously:

'That beard called me a crook, boss!'

'Nobody ever said you weren't! But I don't trust blasted strangers.' The Corporal walked over to Judge Dee's table and asked gruffly: 'Where are you from?'

'We got into a bit of trouble,' Judge Dee replied, 'and Kun-shan sent us here.'

The Corporal gave them a dubious look. He pulled up a chair to the table, sat down and said:

'I don't know Kun-shan too well. Tell me about the trouble!'

'Me and my mate,' the judge answered, 'are simple busi­nessmen trying hard to make an honest living along the road. This morning we met a merchant out in the mountains. He took a liking to us and gave us ten silver pieces to remember him by. Then he laid himself down by the roadside to take a nap, and we went on to town to invest our money. But that merchant woke up in a nasty temper, the crook ran to the tribunal and said we had robbed him. The constables came for us, and Kun-shan took us here. It was nothing but a slight misunderstanding, based on that merchant waking up too soon.'

'That's a good one!' the Corporal said with a grin. Then he asked, suspicious again: 'Why do you drag along that beard with you? And why do you talk like a schoolmaster?'

'That beard,' Chiao Tai said, 'he let grow to please his boss. He used to be a headman of constables in the olden days, but he had to retire before he had earned his pension, because of some financial misunderstanding. By the way, are you an ex-headman too? You seem in the habit of asking questions!'

'I have to make sure, don't I?' the Corporal said sourly. 'And don't call me names, you! Ex-headman nothing! I am from the army. Corporal Liu of the Third Wing of the Western Army. Get that into your thick skull, will you?' And, to the judge: 'Is Kun-shan an old friend of yours?'

'No,' Judge Dee answered, 'we met him for the first time today. He happened to be there when the law came for us.'

'Good!' the Corporal grunted. 'Have a drink on the house!' He shouted at the waiter, who came running with a wine-jar. When they had tasted the wine, the Corporal asked:

'Where were you last?'

'In Peng-lai,' the judge replied. 'We didn't like it there.'

'Stands to reason!' the Corporal grinned. 'I have heard about the new thief-catcher-in-chief they have got there, fellow called Dee, the nastiest cross-patch in the whole pro­vince! A week ago he had the head of a friend of mine chopped off.'

'That's why we left. We used to stay with the Butcher, in his inn near the north gate.'

The Corporal crashed his large fist on the table.

'Why didn't you say so at once, brother? That bastard Kun-shan hasn't got a patch on the Butcher! Straight­forward man, the Butcher was. A bit short-tempered, maybe, much too ready with his knife. Told him a hundred times that that's a bad mistake.'

Judge Dee was glad that the Corporal concurred in his verdict. The Butcher had treacherously stabbed a man to death, and he had sentenced him just before leaving Peng-lai for the Prefecture. He asked: 'Does Kun-shan belong to your organization?'

'No, he is a kind of independent worker. A high-class burglar, very good at his job, I am told. But he's a mean, cantankerous bastard, I am glad he doesn't come here too often. You two are all right, though. Have to be, since you stayed with the Butcher. Put a string of coppers in our pool, and you are welcome to stay with us here.'

Judge Dee took a string from his sleeve. The Corporal threw it across the taproom to the bald man, who caught it dexterously.

'We would like to stay here a few days,' the judge said, 'till the hue and cry has died down, so to speak.'

'That's settled then,' the Corporal said. He shouted at the girl: ' Come over here, Carnation! Meet two new lodgers!'

As she came to the table the Corporal put his arm round her waist and said to the judge:

'This is our housekeeper. She is an ex-professional, but still as good as new, eh, Carnation? Nowadays she only walks the street if she needs a new dress or so, amateur-like. I share her with Baldy, because he is my number two, you see, and since we share the money too.' He looked thoughtfully at the judge, then asked suddenly: 'Can you read and write?' As Judge Dee nodded he went on with enthusiasm: 'Why don't you stay here longer, brother? You can have a room upstairs, drink down here, and if you get troubled by your human nature, I don't mind you taking Carnation through her paces, now and then. Don't look cross now, my wench, you'll get accustomed to that beard!' He pinched the pout­ing girl, then went on: 'You don't know the brain-work I have to do here, brother! I have more than seventy beggars and vagabonds working under me, and they come here every other night for the reckoning. Twenty per cent for me, ten for Baldy, and ten for the house. And, being no man of letters, I have to figure it all out with dots and crosses! That Student there could help me, only the men won't have it, they don't trust him yet. I'd let you start at five per cent, and what you earn yourself is tax-free. Speak up, is it a deal?'

'It's a generous offer,' the judge answered, 'but I think I'd better pass on as soon as I can. I don't hold with murder, you know.'

The Corporal pushed the girl away. Putting his large fists on his knees he asked tensely:

'Murder, you say? Where? '

'I heard a man at the market say that there's a murdered woman lying in the marsh. My mate and I do only robbery. We find it pays better, in the long run. Murder always means trouble. Big trouble.'

'Baldy!' bellowed the Corporal. And, as the bald man came running: 'Why didn't you report to me that there's a murdered woman lying around, eh? Who did it?'

'I don't know nothing about a murdered woman, boss, I swear it !' the bald man whined. 'Nobody told me about it!'

'Shall I go out there and see whether it's true?' the judge asked.

'It wouldn't be you who slit her throat, would it now?' the Corporal asked threateningly.

'Would I go back there if I had done it?' Judge Dee asked with scorn.

'No, you wouldn't, I suppose,' the Corporal muttered. He rubbed his low, corrugated forehead, looking morosely at his wine-cup.

The judge got up and said:

'Give me a man to take me there by the back streets, and I'll have a look. Don't forget that I've been a headman, I know all about dead bodies. Perhaps I can find out for you who did it too!'

The Corporal hesitated. After a while he looked up and said:

'All right, take the Student. I can't let the others go. Soon my men will be coming in for the accounts. Hey, Student, you go with the beard!'

'You better stay here, mate!' Judge Dee said to Chiao Tai. 'The two of us together might attract the attention of the thief-catchers.'

Chiao Tai had followed the conversation in speechless astonishment. He grunted something, then took the wine-jar and hurriedly refilled his cup.