Murder in Canton

XX

Chiao Tai was awakened at dawn by the booming voice of the Moslem priest. From the top of the minaret he was calling upon the faithful for the morning prayer. Chiao Tai rubbed his eyes. He had slept badly, and his back was aching. Passing his finger care­fully along his swollen throat, he muttered to himself, 'One late night and a scuffle shouldn't count for a hefty fellow of forty-five, brother!’ He got up naked as he was and threw the shutters open.

He took a long draught from the spout of the teapot in the padded basket, gargled and spat lukewarm tea into the porcelain spittoon. With a grunt he lay down on the plank bed again. He thought he would grant himself a little nap before getting up and preparing himself for going to the palace.

Just as he was dozing off, he was roused by a knock on the door.

'Go away!’ he shouted, annoyed.

'It is I! Open up, quick!’

Chiao Tai recognized Zumurrud's voice. With a delighted grin he sprang up and stepped into his trousers. He pulled the bolt back.

She hastily came inside and bolted the door behind her. She was all wrapped up in a long, hooded cloak of blue cotton. Her eyes were shining; he thought she was looking even more beautiful than before. He pushed the only chair towards her and sat down on the edge of the bed.

'Want a cup of tea?' he asked awkwardly.

She shook her head, kicked the chair away and said im­patiently:

'Listen, all my troubles are over! You needn't take me to the capital any more. Only take me to your boss. Now!’

To my boss? Why?'

Tour boss promised a reward, big money, that's why! I heard the fishermen shouting the news to the people of my boat. They had seen the placard put up on the gate of the custom-house. I didn't know that the Censor had been mixed up in political trouble, thought he had come to Canton only for me. But that doesn't matter any more. What matters is that I can claim the reward. For I am the one who poisoned him.'

'You?' Chiao Tai exclaimed, aghast. 'How could you...'

'I'll explain!’ she interrupted him curtly. 'Just to show you why you must take me to your boss at once. And put in a good word for me, too.' She took off the blue cloak, and carelessly threw it on the floor. Underneath she wore only a single robe of trans­parent silk that showed every detail of her perfect body. 'About six weeks ago,' she resumed, 'I passed the night with my patron in the house near the temple. When I was leaving in the morning, he said that there was a festival in the Flowery Pagoda, and that I'd better call there on my way to the quay to pray for him — the bastard! Well, I went anyway and burned incense before the large statue of Our Lady of Mercy there. Suddenly I noticed that a man standing close by was eyeing me. He was tall and handsome, and although he was plainly dressed, he had a marked air of authority. He asked me why I, an Arab, prayed to a Chinese goddess. I said a girl can't have too many goddesses looking after her. He laughed, and thus began a long conversation. I knew at once that this was the man I had been hoping to meet all my life. Treated me like I was a real lady, too! I fell in love with him, at first sight, like a snotty chit of sixteen! Since I felt that he liked me, too, I asked him to have a cup of tea with me in the house. It's quite near the back entrance of the temple, you see, and I knew that my patron had left. You can imagine for yourself what fol­lowed. Afterwards he told me he wasn't married and that he had never slept with a woman before. That didn't matter, he said, because now he had met me. He said many other such nice things, then added that he was an Imperial Censor! When I had ex­plained my troubles to him, he promised he would get me Chinese citizenship, and pay my patron all my expenses. He would have to leave Canton in a few days, but he would come back to fetch me and take me to the capital with him.' Patting her hair, she continued with a reminiscent smile: The days and nights we passed together were the happiest in my life, I tell you! Imagine me, who has slept with heaven knows how many hundreds of men, feeling like a young girl in the throes of her first love! I was so silly about him that I got into a bad fit of jealousy when he was about to return to the capital. And then I acted like a blooming fool, messed up everything with my own hands!’ She paused and wiped her perspiring brow with the tip of her sleeve. Grabbing the teapot, she drank from the spout, then resumed listlessly, 'You must know that we waterfolk prepare all kinds of weird drugs, love philtres, some good medicines, but also some poisons. The recipes have been handed down among us Tanka women for generations. We have one particular poison which our women give to their lovers when they suspect they intend to leave them for good, under the pretext of going on a journey. If the chap returns, they give him an antidote, and he never knows what has been done to him. I asked the Censor when he would come back to Canton to fetch me, and he said in two weeks, without fail. At our last meeting I put the poison in his tea, a dose that would be harmless if he took the antidote in three weeks' time. But if he deceived me and never came back, I wanted him to pay for it with his life.

Two weeks went by, then another one. That third week was terrible ... I could hardly eat, and those nights ... After the three weeks had passed, I lived in a trance, mechanically counting the days ... On the fifth day he came. Came to see me on my boat, early in the morning. Said he had been detained in the capi­tal by an urgent affair. He had arrived in Canton two days before, strictly incognito, accompanied only by his friend Dr Soo. He had put off calling on me because he had to see some Arab acquaint­ances, and also because he hadn't been feeling well, and wanted to have a brief rest. But he had become worse, therefore he had come now, ill as he was, hoping that my company would cure him. I was frantic, for I hadn't got the antidote with me, I had hidden it in the house near the temple. I talked him into going there with me at once. He fainted as soon as we were inside. I poured the antidote down his throat, but it was too late. Half an hour later he was dead.'

She bit her lips and stared for a while at the roofs of the houses outside. Chiao Tai looked up at her, dumbfounded. His face had turned deadly pale. She went on slowly:

'There was no one in the house I could turn to, for my patron didn't even keep a maidservant there. I rushed to him and told him what had happened. He only smiled and said he would take care of everything. The bastard knew that I was now completely at his mercy, for I, wretched pariah, had murdered an Imperial Censor. If he denounced me, I'd be quartered alive! I told him that Dr Soo would start to worry if the Censor didn't return to their inn that night. My patron asked whether Dr Soo knew about me and the Censor. When I said no, he said he'd see to it that Soo made no trouble.'

She took a deep breath. Giving Chiao Tai a sidelong glance, she continued:

'If you had taken me to the capital, I would have taken a chance on my patron keeping his mouth shut. He counts for noth­ing in the capital, and you are a colonel of the guard. And if he had blabbed, you could have hidden me where they couldn't get at me. But now everything has turned out for the best. Your boss announced that the Censor was a traitor, which means that in­stead of committing a crime, I did the state a great service. I'll tell him that he can keep half of the gold, if he gets me citizenship, and a nice little house in the capital. Get dressed and take me to him!'

Chiao Tai looked up in utter horror at the woman who had just pronounced her own death sentence. Staring at her as she stood there with her back to the window, her magnificent body outlined against the red morning sky, he suddenly saw in his mind's eye, with horrifying clarity, the scene of the scaffold at dawn — this lithe, perfect body mutilated by the executioner's knife, then the limbs torn asunder.... A long shudder shook his powerful frame. He rose slowly. Standing in front of the exultant woman, he groped frantically for some way to save her, some way to...

Suddenly she cried out and fell into his arms, so vehemently that he nearly lost his balance. Clasping her supple waist, he bent his head to kiss her full, red mouth. But then he saw that her large eyes were getting glazed; her mouth twitched, blood stained her chin. At the same time he felt warm drops trickling down his hands, pressed in the small of her back. In utter confusion he felt her shoulders. His fingers closed round a wooden shaft.

He stood there motionless, the dying woman's round bosom against his breast, her warm thighs against his. He felt her heart flutter, as it had once before when he had held her in his arms on the boat. Then it stopped beating.

He laid her down on the couch and drew the javelin from her back. Then he softly closed her eyes, and wiped her face. His mind was frozen. Dazedly he stared at the flat roofs of the Arab houses outside. Where she had stood at the window she had been an easy target for an expert javelin thrower.

Suddenly he realized that he was standing there by the dead body of the only woman he had ever loved, loved with his entire being. He fell on his knees in front of the couch, buried his face in her long, curling locks and burst into strange, soundless sobs.

After a long time he rose. He took her blue cloak and covered her.

'For the two of us, love meant death,' he whispered. 'I knew it, as soon as I had seen you, that first time. I then saw a battlefield, smelled the heady smell of fresh blood, saw its red flow....'

He cast one long look at the still figure, then locked the room and went downstairs. He walked all the way to the palace, through the grey streets where only few people were about at this early hour.

The majordomo told him that Judge Dee was still in his bed­room. Chiao Tai went upstairs and sat down on one of the couches in the anteroom. The judge had heard him. Bare-headed and still wearing his nightrobe, he pulled the door-curtain aside. He had a comb in his hand; he had just been doing his beard and whiskers. Seeing Chiao Tai's haggard face, he quickly stepped up to him and asked, astonished:

'What in heaven's name has happened, Chiao Tai? No, don't get up, man! You look ill!’ He sat down on the other couch and gave his lieutenant a worried look.

Staring straight ahead, Chiao Tai told him the whole story of Zumurrud. When he had finished, he added in a toneless voice, looking the judge full in the face, 'I thought it all out on my way here, sir. She and I were lost, either way. If the assassin hadn't murdered her, I would have killed her myself, then and there. Her life for that of the Censor, a life for a life, she would have under­stood that. It's in her blood, as it is in mine. Then I would have killed myself. As it is, I am still alive. But as soon as this case has been disposed of, I beg you to release me from my oath to serve you, sir. I want to go and join our northern army, now fighting the Tartars beyond the border.'

There was a long silence. At last Judge Dee spoke quietly:

'I never met her, but I understand. She died a happy woman, happy because she thought her one and only dream would now come true. But she had died already before she was killed, Chiao Tai. For she had only that one dream left, and one needs many dreams to stay alive.' He straightened his robe, then looked up and said pensively, 'I know exactly how you feel, Chiao Tai. Four years ago, in Peichow, when I was solving the nail murders, the same thing happened to me. And I had to make the decision which Zumurrud's murderer took out of your hands. Moreover, she had saved my life and my career.'

'Was she executed, sir?' Chiao Tai asked tensely.

'No. She wanted to spare me that. She committed suicide.' Slowly stroking his long beard, he went on, 'I was going to give up everything. I wanted to retire from a world that suddenly seemed grey and lifeless, dead.' He paused, then he suddenly laid his hand on Chiao Tai's arm. 'No one can give you any help or advice. You must decide yourself what course to follow. But whatever your decision may be, Chiao Tai, it will never change my friendship and my high regard for you.' Rising, he added with a wan smile, 'I must finish my toilet now; I probably look like a scarecrow! And you had better order my four agents at once to go to her boat, apprehend the maid who was her patron's spy, and question the crew. For we must learn the identity of her patron. Then you go back to your inn with a dozen constables, fetch the body, and take the routine measures for tracing the murderer.'

He turned round and disappeared behind the door-curtain.

Chiao Tai rose and went downstairs.