The Red Pavilion

XIX

The next morning Ma Joong came to report for duty very early, when Judge Dee was still eating his morning rice, out on the veranda. A thin mist hung over the silent park; the wet garlands of coloured silk drooped limply among the trees.

The judge gave his lieutenant a brief account of his talk with Feng and his daughter. He concluded: 'Presently we shall go and try to find Miss Ling. Tell the manager to have two horses ready for us. If Miss Ling is not back in her hovel, we'll have to make a fairly long ride up-country, to the north of the island.'

When Ma Joong came back Judge Dee was just putting down his chopsticks. He rose and went inside, telling Ma Joong to lay out his brown travelling robe. While helping the judge to change, Ma asked:

'I suppose that Kia Yu-po isn't implicated in all those queer goings on, sir?'

'No. Why?'

'I happened to hear last night that he plans to leave the island, together with a girl he has fallen in love with. His engagement to Miss Feng was more or less foisted on him, I gathered.'

'Let them go. I don't need him. I think we'll be able to leave here too today, Ma Joong. In your spare hours you got all the amusement you wanted, I trust?'

'I did indeed! But Paradise Island is a very expensive place!'

'I don't doubt it,' the judge said, winding the black sash round his waist. 'But you had two silver pieces, those'll have sufficed.'

'To tell you the truth, sir, they didn't! I had a very good time, but all my money is gone.'

'Well, I hope it was worth it! And you still have your capital, the gold you inherited from your uncle.'

'That's gone too, sir,' Ma Joong remarked.

'What's that? Those two gold bars you intended to save for later? That's incredible!'

Ma Joong nodded sadly.

'The fact is, Your Honour, that I found here too many attractive girls, far too many! And far too expensive!'

'It's disgraceful!' Judge Dee burst out. 'Squandering two whole gold bars on wine and women!' He adjusted his black cap with an angry jerk. Then he sighed and said with a re­signed shrug: 'You'll never learn, Ma Joong.'

They walked in silence to the front courtyard and ascended their horses.

Riding ahead, Ma Joong took the judge through the back streets and across the piece of wasteland. At the entrance of the path leading on among the trees, he halted his horse and remarked that it was there that he and his two friends had been attacked. He asked:

'Did Feng know what was behind that attack, sir?'

'He thinks he does, but he doesn't. I know. It was aimed at me.'

Ma Joong wanted to asked what that meant but the judge had already urged on his horse. When the large yew-tree came into sight Ma Joong pointed at the hovel standing against its gnarled trunk. Judge Dee nodded. He dismounted and handed the reins of his horse to Ma Joong, saying:

'You stay here and wait for me.'

He walked on alone through the wet grass. The morning sun had not yet succeeded in piercing the dense foliage that overhung the shed's roof. It was clammy in the shadow; there was an unpleasant odour of rotting leaves. A faint shimmer of light appeared behind the dirty oil-paper of the single window.

Judge Dee stepped up close to the ramshackle door and listened. He heard a strangely beautiful voice softly croon an old melody. He remembered that it had been popular when he was still a child. He pulled the door open and entered. While he was standing there, just inside the entrance, the door fell shut behind him, creaking on rusty hinges.

The light of a cheap earthenware oil lamp lit the drab room with its uncertain light. Miss Ling was sitting cross-legged on the bamboo couch, cradling the repulsive head of the leprous beggar in her arms. He was lying flat on his back on the couch, the sores on his limbs showed through the soiled rags that partly covered his emaciated body. His one remaining eye shone dully in the lamp-light.

She raised her head and turned her blind face to the judge.

'Who is it?' she asked in her rich, warm voice.

'It is I, the magistrate.'

The leper's blue lips contorted in a lopsided sneer. Looking fixedly at his one eye, the judge spoke:

'You are Dr Lee Wei-djing, the Academician's father. And she is the courtesan Green Jade, reported dead thirty years ago.'

'We are lovers! ' the blind woman said proudly.

'You came to the island,' Judge Dee continued to the leper, 'because you had heard that the Queen Flower Autumn Moon had driven your son to his death, and you wanted revenge. You were wrong. Your son killed himself because he had dis­covered swellings, on his neck, and thought that he had got the disease too. Whether rightly or wrongly, I don't know; I couldn't examine the corpse. He lacked your courage, he couldn't face a leper's miserable end. But Autumn Moon didn't know that. In her foolish hankering after fame she stated that he had killed himself because of her. You heard that from her own lips when, hidden in the shrubbery in front of the veranda of the Red Pavilion, you eavesdropped on our conversation.'

He paused. There was only the laboured breathing of the leper.

'Your son trusted Autumn Moon. He gave her a letter for you wherein he explained his decision. But she forgot all about it, didn't even open it. I found it, after you had murdered her,'

He took the letter from his sleeve, and read it aloud.

'I bore a son of you under my heart, dear,' the woman said tenderly. 'But after I was cured, I had a miscarriage. Our son would have been handsome, and courageous. Just like you!'

Judge Dee threw the letter on the couch.

'After you had come to the island you were watching Autumn Moon all the time. When, late that night, you saw her going to the Red Pavilion, you went after her. Standing on the veranda you saw her through the barred window, lying naked on the bed. You called her name. Then you stood your­self next to the window, your back against the wall. When she came to the window, probably pressing her face close to the iron bars to see better who was calling, you suddenly came forward. You stuck your hands through the bars and grabbed her throat, to throttle her. But your deformed hands could not hold her. On her way to the door to call for help, she had a heart attack and collapsed on the floor. You killed her, Dr Lee.' . The red, inflamed eyelid fluttered. She bent over the deformed face and whispered:

'Don't listen to him, dear! Rest, my sweet, you are not well.'

The judge averted his eyes. Staring at the damp floor of stamped earth, he went on:

'Your son rightly mentioned in his letter your indomitable courage, Dr Lee. You were mortally ill and your wealth had dwindled away. But you still had your son. You would make him a great man, and quickly too. Paradise Island, that treasure house of gold, was situated on the boundary of your land. First you sent your ruffians to rob Feng's gold transport, but it was too well guarded. Then you thought of a better plan. You told your son that the curio-dealer Wen Yuan hated Feng and wanted to oust him as warden. You ordered your son to estab­lish contact with Wen, and execute with him the plot that would result in Feng's being dismissed in disgrace. Your son would then get Wen appointed in Feng's place as warden of the island, and through him you would be able to tap the island's wealth. Your son's death brought all that to nought.

'We hadn't met before, Dr Lee, but you knew my reputation, just as I knew yours, and you were afraid I would find out about you. After you had killed the Queen Flower, you came back to the Red Pavilion. You stood for a while on the veranda watching me through the barred window. Your evil presence only caused me a bad dream. You couldn't do anything, for I was lying too far from the window, and I had barred the door.'

He looked up. The leper's face was a gruesome, leering mask. The putrid odour in the small room had become worse. The judge pulled up his neckcloth over his mouth and nose and spoke through it:

'You tried to leave the island after that, but the boatmen wouldn't take you. I suppose you searched the forest on the waterside for a hiding place, and there met by accident, after thirty years, your mistress Green Jade. Recognized her by her voice, I presume. She warned you that I was investigating Tao Kwang's death. What made you cling to a life that held only misery for you, Dr Lee? Were you determined to save your reputation at any cost? Or was it devotion to the woman whom you loved, thirty years ago, and whom you had thought dead? Or an evil desire to come out winner, always? I don't know how an incurable disease may affect a great mind.' As there was no reply, Judge Dee resumed: ' Yesterday afternoon you spied again on me, for the third time. I should have known, I should have recognized the unmistakable odour. You heard me saying to my lieutenant that I was going here. You went to call your hired men and ordered them to lie in ambush among the trees and kill me. You could not know that, after I had gone inside the sitting-room, I had changed my plans. Your men attacked my lieutenant and two of the warden's men instead. All were killed, but one of them mentioned your name, just before he died.

'After I had read your son's letter, I suddenly understood. I knew what you had been, Dr Lee. Feng had described you as the dashing young official of thirty years ago. And Green Jade described you again when she spoke to me of a lover with a wild, reckless strain in him, a man who would casually throw away wealth, position, everything—because of the woman he loved.'

'That was you, dear!' the woman spoke softly. 'That was you, my handsome, reckless lover!'

She covered his face with kisses.

Judge Dee looked away. He said in a tired voice:

'Persons suffering from an incurable disease are beyond the pale of the law, Dr Lee. I only wish to state that you murdered the courtesan Autumn Moon in the Red Pavilion, as you murdered there Tao Kwang, thirty years ago.'

'Thirty years!' the beautiful voice spoke up.' After all those years we are together again! Those years never happened, dear, they were a bad dream, a nightmare. It was only yesterday that we met, in the Red Room ... red as our passion, our burn­ing, reckless love. Nobody ever knew we met there, you, the handsome, talented young official, loving me, the most beauti­ful, the most talented of all courtesans, the Queen Flower of Paradise Island! Feng Dai, Tao Kwang, and so many others, they all sought my favour. I encouraged them, feigned not to be able to make up my mind, only to protect our secret, our sweet secret.

'Then came that last evening . . . when was it? Wasn't it last night? Just when you were crushing my trembling body in your strong arms, we suddenly heard someone in the sitting-room. You sprang from the bed, naked as you were you ran out there. I followed you, saw you standing there, the red rays of the setting sun colouring your dear body a fiery red. When Tao Kwang saw us standing there close together, naked and defiant, he grew white with rage. Pulling his dagger he called me a shameful name. "Kill him!" I cried. You sprang on him, wrenched the dagger from his hand and plunged it into his neck. The blood spouted over you, red blood over your red, broad breast. Never, never have I loved you more than then . . .'

The ecstatic joy gave the ravaged blind face a strange beauty. The judge bent his head. He heard the vibrant voice resume:

'I said: "Let's dress quickly and flee!" We went back to the Red Room, but then heard someone enter the sitting-room. You went and saw that silly boy. He rushed out again at once, but you said that he might recognize you. It was better to take the body to the Red Room, put the dagger in his hand, lock the door behind us, push the key back inside under the door . . . then they'd say that Tao had killed himself.'

'We parted on the veranda. They were just lighting the lampions, in the small kiosk, over in the park. You said you would go away for a few weeks, wait till the suicide had been registered. Then . . . you would come back to me.'

She began to cough. It became steadily worse, soon it was shaking her wasted frame. Foam and blood came on her lips. She wiped it off carelessly and went on, her voice suddenly weak and hoarse:

'They asked me whether Tao had loved me. I said yes he had loved me, and it was true. They asked me whether he had died because I would not have him, and I said yes he had died because of me, for again it was true. But then the sickness came. ... I got it, my face, my hands . . . my eyes. I would die, and I wanted to die, die rather than ever let you see me again, as I had become.... There was the fire, other sick women dragged me along, over the bridge, to the forest.

'I didn't die, I lived. I, who wanted to die ! I took the papers of Miss Ling, Gold Jasper as she was called. She had died, in the field drain, by my side. I came back, but you thought I was dead, as I wanted you to think. How glad I was when I heard how great, how famous you had become! It was the only thing that kept me alive. And now, at last, you have come back to me, in my arms!'

Suddenly the voice fell silent. When Judge Dee looked up he saw her thin, spidery fingers quickly passing over the still head in her lap. The one eye had closed, the rags on the sunken breast did not move any more.

Pressing the ugly head to her flat bosom she cried out:

'You came back, Heaven be praised! You came back so that you could die in my arms . . . and I with you.'

She hugged the dead body, whispering endearing words.

The judge turned round and went outside. The creaking door fell shut behind him.