Murder in Canton

XXII

The headman of Judge Dee's palankeen bearers had to knock for a long time before the high double gate opened. The bent figure of the old house steward appeared. With bleary eyes he looked aston­ished at the two visitors.

'Please announce us to your master,' the judge told him affably. 'Tell him that this is quite an informal visit; I want to see him for a few moments only.'

The steward led the judge and Tao Gan to the second hall and asked them to sit down on one of the enormous benches of carved ebony. Then he shuffled away.

Judge Dee silently stared at the huge coloured murals and slowly stroked his long beard. Tao Gan darted uneasy glances now at the judge, now at the door.

Sooner than Judge Dee had expected, the steward came back. 'This way, please!’ he wheezed.

He took them through a corridor in the west section of the compound to a wing that seemed completely deserted. They met no one in the series of empty courtyards, whose white flagstones lay blazing in the sun. At the rear of the third, the old man entered a cool, semi-dark corridor. It led to a flight of broad wooden stairs, blackened by age.

At the top the steward halted for a moment to regain his breath, then took them up two other staircases, each narrower than the one before. They came upon a spacious landing. A faint breeze blew through the latticework of the high windows. Appar­ently they were on the top floor of a kind of tower. No carpet covered the floorboards, there was only a tea-table and two high-backed chairs. Above the double door in the back wall hung a huge wooden board bearing four engraved characters: 'Ancestral Hall of the Liang Family', in the impressive calligraphy of the former Emperor.

'The master is waiting for Your Excellency inside,' the steward said, as he pushed the door open.

Judge Dee gave a sign to Tao Gan who took one of the chairs at the tea-table. Then the judge entered.

He was met by the heavy smell of Indian incense. It came from the large bronze burner on the high altar in the rear of the hall, dimly lit by two candelabras. Below the altar stood a magnificent antique sacrificial table, laid out for a memorial service. Liang Foo was sitting at a lower table in front of it, wearing a ceremonial robe of dark-green brocade and the high cap indicating his literary degree.

He rose quickly and came to meet the judge.

'I do hope you did not mind all those steps, sir!’ he said with a courteous smile.

'Not at all!’ Judge Dee assured him quickly. After a glance at the life-size picture of Admiral Liang in full armour hanging on the wall opposite, he added, 'I deeply regret that I have to inter­rupt memorial rites for your late father.'

'Your Excellency is welcome at any time,' Liang said calmly. 'And my late father won't mind interruption; he was always wont to put official matters before his family interests — as his children knew only too well! Be seated, please!’

He led his guest to a chair on the right of the table. On it lay a large chess-board, a few black and white pieces distributed over it in a pattern suggesting the final phase of a game. By its side stood two brass bowls, one containing the discarded white pieces, the other the black. Liang had apparently been studying a chess prob­lem. Sitting down and straightening his robe, Judge Dee said:

'I wanted to discuss with you a few new facts that have come to light, Mr Liang.' He waited till his host had seated himself on the other side of the table, then added, 'More in particular about the theft of a woman's dead body.'

JUDGE DEE DISCUSSES A CHESS-PROBLEM

Liang raised his curved eyebrows.

'What a curious object to steal! You must tell me more about it! But let's first have a cup of tea!’

He rose and went to the tea-table in the corner.

The judge quickly looked round him. The flickering light of the candles shone on the offerings on the sacrificial table, covered with a piece of embroidered brocade. On it stood golden vessels heaped with rice cakes and fruit, between two fine antique vases filled with fresh flowers. The broad niche above the sacrificial table, where the soul-tablets of the ancestors are always displayed, was hidden by a scarlet curtain. The heavy fragrance of the incense could not conceal the curious smell of foreign spices, which seemed to come from behind the scarlet curtain. Raising his head, the judge saw that the room was very high, and the grey incense clouds clustered about the blackened rafters. The bare floor con­sisted of broad wooden boards, polished to a dark, glossy finish. He rose abruptly. Pulling his chair round to the left side of the table, he remarked casually to Liang, who was coming up to him:

'I'll sit here, if I may. The light of the candles is bothering me.'

'Certainly!’ Liang turned his own chair round so as to face the judge. Sitting down, he resumed: 'From here we have a better view of the ancestral portrait.'

The judge watched him as he poured the tea in two small cups of blue porcelain. He placed one in front of Judge Dee, then cupped the other in his hands. The judge noticed through the thin, long fingers a crack in the delicate glaze. Liang pensively looked at the picture.

'It is an excellent likeness,' he said, 'done by a great artist. Do you notice how carefully he painted every small detail?' Putting down his cup, he rose and walked over to the picture. Standing with his back to the judge, he pointed out the details of the broad­sword lying across the Admiral's knees.

Judge Dee shifted their tea cups. He quickly emptied that of Liang in the bowl of chess-pieces nearest to him, then got up and stepped up to his host, the empty cup in his hand.

'I hope you still have that sword?' he asked. As Liang nodded, he went on, 'I too possess a famous sword, inherited from my ancestors. Its name is "Rain Dragon".'

'Rain Dragon? What a curious name!’

'I'll tell you its story, some other time. Could I have another cup of tea, Mr Liang?'

'By all means!’

After they had sat down again, Liang refilled Judge Dee's cup, then emptied his own. Folding his thin hands in his sleeves, he said with a smile:

'Let's now have the story of the stolen body!’

'Before I come to that,' Judge Dee said briskly, 'I would like to give you a brief sketch of the background, so to speak.' As Liang nodded eagerly, the judge took his fan from his sleeve, and leaned back in his chair. Slowly fanning himself, he began:

'When I arrived in Canton the day before yesterday to trace the missing Censor, I only knew that his business was in some way or another connected with the Arabs here. In the course of my in­quiries I found that I had an opponent who knew perfectly well the real object of my visit, and who was watching every move we made. When I had discovered the Censor, murdered by a Tanka poison, I assumed that one of the Censor's enemies at court had engaged a local agent to lure the Censor to Canton, and have him killed here by Arab conspirators. But I perceived also other forces that seemed intent on thwarting the evil scheme. As my in­vestigation went on, things became ever more complicated. Arab hooligans and Tanka stranglers were roaming about, and a mys­terious blind girl kept flitting in and out of the picture. It was only this very morning that I at last obtained a definite clue. Namely when the dancer Zumurrud told Colonel Chiao that it was she who had poisoned the Censor, and that her patron knew all about it. She kept to the rule of the "world of flowers and willows" that a girl should never divulge the name of a customer. I suspected the Governor, the Prefect and thought in passing of you. It led me nowhere.'

He snapped his fan close and put it back into his sleeve. Liang had been listening with a bland air of polite interest. Judge Dee sat up straight and resumed:

'So I tried another approach, namely to piece together a mental picture of my opponent. Then I realized that he had the typical mind of a chess-player. A man who always stays in the back­ground and makes others act for him, moving them about like chess-men on the board. I and my assistants were also his chess­men, we were an integral part of his game. This realization was an important step forward. For a crime is half-solved already when one has understood the criminal's mind.

'How very true!’

'I then reconsidered you, the expert chess-player,' the judge re­sumed. 'You certainly had the subtle intellect required for evolv­ing a difficult scheme, and for supervising its execution. I also could imagine a good motive, namely your frustration at not be­ing able to follow in the footsteps of your illustrious father. On the other hand, however, you were definitely not the type of per­son to fall in love with an Arab dancer tainted by pariah blood. I decided that if you should be our man, then one of your hench­men would be the dancer's lover. Since Mr Yau Tai-kai would eminently fit that role, I resolved to have him arrested. Just then, however, the theft of the dancer's body was reported to me. And that made me come straight to you.'

'Why to me?' Liang asked calmly.

'Because when I then began to think about the dead dancer and about the Tanka and their savage passions, I suddenly remem­bered the chance remark of a poor Chinese prostitute who had been a slave of the Tanka. At their drunken orgies the Tanka used to boast to her that about eighty years ago an important Chinese had secretly married one of their girls, and that their son had become a famous warrior. Then I thought of the peculiar features of the Subduer of the South Seas.' He pointed at the picture on the wall. 'Look at the high cheekbones, flat nose and low forehead. "Old Monkey-face", as his sailors affectionately nicknamed the Admiral.' Liang nodded slowly.

'So you have unearthed our jealously guarded family secret! Yes, my grandmother was indeed a Tanka. My grandfather com­mitted a crime in marrying her!’ He grinned. There was a malig­nant glint in his eyes when he resumed, 'Imagine, the famous Admiral tainted by the blood of an outcast! He was not as fine a gentleman as people always thought him to be, eh?'

Ignoring the sneering remark, Judge Dee continued:

'Then I realized that I had been thinking of the wrong game of chess. Namely of our Chinese literary chess played with pieces all of equal value; or the military one, representing a battle between two opposing generals. I suddenly understood that I ought to have referred to the game as people say it is played in India. There the king and the queen are the two most important pieces. And in the particular game of chess you were playing it was not primarily a high position in the capital that was the gage, but the possession of the queen.'

'How cleverly put!’ Liang said with a thin smile. 'May I ask in what stage the game is now?'

"The last. The king is lost, for the queen is dead.'

'Yes, she is dead,' Liang said quietly. 'But she is lying in state, as befits a queen. The queen of the game of life. Her spirit now presides over these solemn death rites, rejoices in rich offerings, in fresh flowers. Look, she smiles her beautiful smile....'He rose and quickly pulled the curtain above the altar aside.

Judge Dee gasped at this shocking, unspeakable outrage. Here in the sacred ancestral hall of the Liang family, facing the dead Admiral's portrait, and in the niche destined for the soul-tablets of the departed, Zumurrud's naked body lay stretched out on the gold-lacquered altar top. She was lying on her back, her hands folded behind her head, her full lips curved in a mocking smile.

'She has only received preliminary treatment,' Liang remarked casually, as he drew the curtain shut again. 'Tonight the work will be continued. Has to be, in this hot weather.'

He resumed his seat. The judge had now mastered himself. He asked coldly:

'Shall we reconstruct the game together, move by move?'

'I'd like that very much,' Liang replied gravely. 'An analysis of the game always affords me the keenest pleasure.'

'Now then, the gage was Zumurrud. You had bought her, so you possessed her body. That was all. You thought you would win her love if only you could gratify the one desire that dominated her, namely to be raised from her pariah status to that of a great Chinese lady. Since that could be done only by one of the highest metropolitan officials, you decided you would become one of those. You had to act upon that decision quickly, for you were obsessed by the fear of losing her, either to a man she would fall in love with, or to one who could make her realize her ambitions. Mansur fell in love with her. Apparently she did not care for him, but you feared nonetheless that sooner or later her Arab blood would speak, and therefore you wanted to eliminate Mansur. Then you heard from one of your friends in the capital that a powerful person at court, close to the Empress and her clique, was looking for a means to ruin the Imperial Censor Lew, and was willing to reward handsomely anyone who could help to achieve that aim. That was your chance! You began at once to work out a scheme, carefully planning the moves that would win you the queen. You put an ingenious proposal before that person at court. You...'

'Let's have everything neat and orderly!' Liang interrupted testily. 'That person is Wang, the Chief Eunuch of the Imperial Seraglio. Our contact was a mutual friend, the wealthy wine-merchant who is purveyor to the court.'

Judge Dee grew pale. The Emperor mortally ill; the Empress tormented by her perverse passions; the sinister, hybrid figure of the Chief Eunuch ... he suddenly saw the hideous pattern.

'Now guess what position he promised me! Yours! And with the backing of the Empress I shall rise higher still! My father was the Subduer of the South Seas. I shall be the Subduer of the Em­pire!'

'Quite,' Judge Dee said wearily. 'Well, you proposed to lure the Censor to Canton by giving him to understand that the Arabs were planning a revolt, with the connivance of an unnamed per­son at Court. You would fan Mansur's foolish ambitions, so that when the Censor came to investigate he would indeed find some­thing brewing here. Then you would have him murdered, and accuse Mansur. When questioned under severe torture, Mansur would be made to confess that the Censor had backed his plot. Neat solution! Mansur out of the way, the Censor dead and his reputation smeared, and you going to the capital, together with Zumurrud.

'The game opened exactly as you had planned. The Censor came here incognito, to check the rumours about unrest among the Arabs. He did not dare to inform the authorities of his visit, be­cause it had been suggested to him that a person at court was involved in the scheme, and he wanted to discover who that was, of course. However, he came also for another reason, then un­known to you. On his first visit to Canton the Censor had met Zumurrud, and they had fallen in love with each other.'

'How could I have foreseen that she would meet him in that confounded temple?' Liang muttered. 'She...'

'That is where life differs from chess, Mr Liang,' Judge Dee cut him short. 'In real life you have to reckon with unknown factors. Well, after the Censor had studied the situation here together with Dr Soo, he suspected that a trap was being laid for him. He approached Mansur and feigned to sympathize with his seditious plans. He probably even helped Mansur and two of his accom­plices to smuggle arms into the city. When Mansur reported this to you, you knew that your scheme was succeeding even better than you had expected: if Mansur was brought to justice, he would have to confess only the truth! But since you realized that the Censor was fooling Mansur, you decided to speed up his murder.

'Then Zumurrud poisoned the Censor. She had to tell you everything, and...'

'Had to tell me, you say?' Liang shouted suddenly. 'She always insisted on telling me! Every time, directly after she had slept with one of her vulgar, stray lovers! Tormented me by telling all the sordid, unspeakable details, then laughed at me!’ Burying his face in his hands, he sobbed. 'That was her revenge, and I ... I could do nothing. She was stronger than me. The fiery blood pul­sated in her veins, while mine was thin, thinned by two genera­tions....' He looked up, his face haggard. Taking hold of himself, he said harshly, 'All right, she had not told me about the Censor before, because he was going to take her away. Proceed! Time is getting short.'

'Just at that time,' Judge Dee continued calmly, 'I and my two assistants arrived. Ostensibly to inspect foreign trade. You sus­pected that I had come to investigate the Censor's disappearance. You had my two lieutenants closely watched, and found your suspicions confirmed by the interest they displayed in the Arabs here. You decided that we fitted nicely into your game. For who could better denounce Mansur's treacherous scheme than the President of the Metropolitan Court? Your only problem was Dr Soo. Zumurrud had said that Dr Soo was ignorant of her affair with the Censor, but you had to make sure. Now Dr Soo must have become worried when the Censor did not return to their inn that night, and the next morning, that is the day before yester­day, he roamed along the waterfront looking for him. You had him followed by one of Mansur's Arab assassins, and one of your own Tanka stranglers. They reported in the afternoon that Dr Soo apparently knew Colonel Chiao, and that he followed my lieutenant when he left the wine-house. You ordered the Tanka to assist the Arab in killing Dr Soo, but to strangle him before he could kill Chiao Tai. For you wanted to spare Colonel Chiao so that he could follow up Dr Soo's murder, which would, in due course, further strengthen the case against Mansur.

'Then, however, you had a stroke of bad luck. My man Tao Gan happened to meet the blind girl. She must be your sister, the one you said had died in an accident. For Tao Gan mistook Mrs Pao for her, and so did your Tanka killers whom you had sent to Yau's house. She evidently wanted to prevent you from ruining your­self, and...'

'The sanctimonious little fool!’ Liang interrupted angrily. 'She is the cause of all my troubles, for she wilfully threw away a splendid future, by my side. She and I inherited my father's talents; our younger sister was nothing but a stupid woman, swayed by her ludicrous petty passions! But Lan-lee! When the old houseteacher was reading the classics with us, she would understand at once the most difficult passages! And she was beautiful! My boyhood ideal of the perfect woman! I often spied on her when she was bathing, her...' Suddenly he fell silent. He swallowed a few times before he went on, 'After we had grown up and our parents died, I spoke to her about our ancient myths, of the Founding Saints of our Empire, who took their sisters as spouse. But she, she refused, said awful, terrible things to me, said she would leave me, and never come back. So I put boiling oil into her eyes while she was asleep. For how could I allow a woman who had dared to scorn me ever to look upon another man? In­stead of cursing me, she pitied me, the little hypocrite! In a rage I set fire to her room, I wanted to ... to...' He choked, his face distorted in impotent anger. After a while he resumed, calmer, 'She had said she would never come back, but recently she would come to snoop here in my house, the slick bitch. I heard that she had met my two men who brought the Censor's body here before taking it to the temple, and had stolen that damned cricket. Although she knew nothing of my scheme, she was clever enough to put two and two together. Fortunately my men spotted her when that assistant of yours took her home, and they eaves­dropped on their conversation. The nasty bitch was setting you on my trail by saying that she had caught the cricket near the temple where the Censor's body was. So I brought her here and locked her up. But she escaped the next morning, just after breakfast. How she managed to do that, I still...'

'It was indeed the clue of the cricket that led me to the temple,' Judge Dee said. 'My discovery of the Censor's dead body was an unexpected setback for you; you had wanted the body to dis­appear, so that the Tanka poison would not be identified. Later you would make Mansur confess that he had thrown it into the sea, I presume. However, you succeeded in turning this setback into your favour. During my visit here you cleverly suggested that the Arabs had close contacts with the Tanka, implying that Mansur had ample opportunity for obtaining the poison. So everything was going very well indeed. Then, for the second time, the human element cut across your beautiful game. Colonel Chiao met Zumurrud and fell in love with her. Your spies reported that he visited her on the boat yesterday morning, evidently slept with her. What if she had persuaded him to spirit her away to the capital? What if she had inadvertently given him a clue to your identity? Chiao Tai had to go. He was to be killed in Nee's house.' The judge looked thoughtfully at his host and asked, 'By the way, how did you know that Chiao Tai would call there a second time?'

Liang Foo shrugged his narrow shoulders.

'Two of my men had established a regular watchpost in the house at the back of Nee's, directly after your man Chiao's first visit to Nee. Mansur was hiding there too. When he saw your lieutenant going there, he sent his two men over the roofs at once to kill him with one of the captain's swords. I thought that quite a good idea of Mansur, for Nee deserved to die on the scaffold, as a murderer. The lecher debauched my sister.'

'He did not. But let's not digress; let's return to the game of chess; its last, concluding phase. Your chess-men had got completely out of hand. My scheme of exposing the faked head of the Censor worked. Early this morning Zumurrud went to Colonel Chiao's inn, and asked him to take her to me so that she could claim her reward. There she was killed. Now the queen has been taken and you have lost the game.'

'I had to have her killed,' Liang muttered. 'She was going to leave me, to betray me. I used the best javelin-thrower I knew. She did not suffer.' He stared into space, absent-mindedly stroking his long moustache. Suddenly he looked up. 'Never measure a man's wealth by what he possesses, Dee. Measure it by what he failed to acquire. She despised me, because she knew me for what I really am, a coward, afraid of others, and of myself. And so she wanted to leave me. But now, embalmed, her beauty will be with me forever. I shall talk to her, talk to her every night, of my love. No one will come between us anymore.' Righting himself, he added fiercely; 'And least of all you, Dee! For you are on the verge of dying!’

'As if your murdering me would help you!’ the judge said with scorn. 'Do you think I am such a fool as to come here and confront you with your crimes, without having acquainted the Governor and my lieutenants with all the facts I have discovered against you?'

'Yes, I certainly do think so!’ Liang answered smugly. 'As soon as I knew that you were going to be my opponent, I made a careful analysis of your personality, you see. You are a famous man, Dee. The many astounding criminal cases you have solved during the last twenty years have become public property, they are told and re-told in the tea-houses and wine-shops all over the Empire. I know exactly how you work! You have a logical mind, rare intuitive power, and an uncanny knack of connecting seem­ingly unconnected facts. You pick your suspect, mostly through your shrewd insight into human nature, and relying heavily on your intuition. Then you pounce on him, bringing to bear on him the full force of your personality — which is rather overwhelming, I admit. You get your man to confess in one brilliant, spectacular move — and you explain afterwards. That is your typical method. You never bother about building up a complete case, patiently plodding along till you have collected conclusive evidence, and sharing your discoveries with your assistants, as other criminal investigators do. For that would run counter to your character. Therefore I know most assuredly that you did not tell the Gover­nor a thing. And your two lieutenants only very little. And there­fore, my dear Counsellor, you are going to die here.' He bestowed upon the judge a patronizing look, then went on placidly, 'My dear sister shall die here too. My Tanka stranglers failed to kill her twice, first in Yau's house and then again in the Examination Hall, but I know she is here in this house now, and I shall catch her at last. With her goes the only witness that could testify against me. For the stupid Tanka I employ know nothing, and they live in a world apart where they can never be traced. Mansur has his suspicions, but that clever scoundrel is on the high seas by now, in an Arab ship bound for his own country. The Censor's case will be recorded for what it essentially was: a murder of passion, committed by a misguided pariah woman, killed in her turn by a jealous Arab lover who stole her dead body. Neat case!’ After a sigh he continued: 'It will be universally regretted that in your zeal to solve the case you over-exerted yourself, and died from a heart attack while visiting me for a consultation. Every­body knows that you have been working too hard for many years, and human strength has its natural limits. The poison I used pro­duces exactly the same symptoms as heart failure, and it can't be traced. Got the recipe from Zumurrud, as a matter of fact. Well, that such a famous man breathes his last in my humble house I consider a signal honour! I shall call your man Tao Gan inside, later, and he shall help me with the preparations for conveying your body to the palace. The Governor shall take all the other routine measures, I trust. Your two lieutenants are competent and intelligent — I never underestimate my enemies — and they'll doubt­less have their suspicions. But by the time they have convinced the Governor to take a closer look at my affairs, all traces of what really happened here will have been effaced. And don't forget that I shall be appointed as your successor soon! As to the men you so thoughtfully posted in my front courtyard, and the guards who surround my house, I shall explain that you expected a murderous attack on me by Arab scoundrels. I shall let your men discover one Arab hooligan here, and he shall be duly executed. Well, that is all.'

'I see,' Judge Dee said. 'And so it was the tea. I must confess that I had expected a more ingenious manner of attack. A secret trap door, or something coming down from the ceiling, for instance. You'll have noticed that I took precautions against that by shift­ing my chair.'

'But you hadn't forgotten that old trick of the poisoned tea either,' Liang said with an indulgent smile. 'You shifted our cups, as I had expected you would while I had turned my back on you; mere routine on the part of an experienced investigator like you, of course. The poison was smeared on the inside of my cup, you know. Your own cup contained only harmless tea. So you drank the poison, and it should start to work by now, the dose was carefully graded. No, don't move! If you rise the poison will work at once. Don't you feel a dull pain in your heart region?'

'I don't,' Judge Dee said dryly. 'And I shan't either. Didn't I tell you I knew you have the chess-player's mind? He thinks in sequences of connected moves. I knew that if you chose poison as your weapon, you'd never adopt the crude method of putting it in my cup. That was confirmed when I noticed that your cup was cracked, which meant that you wanted to be able to make sure that I had indeed made the anticipated move of shifting our cups. Well, I made a second move. I not only shifted the cups, but also their content. I poured the poisoned tea in this bowl of chees-pieces here, you know, and the harmless tea into the cracked cup. Then I poured the poisoned tea from the chess-bowl into my cup, now yours. You can see it for yourself.' He took the chess bowl and let Liang look at the wet chess-men inside.

Liang sprang up. He went to the sacrificial table, but half-way he halted. Swaying on his feet, he clasped his hands to his breast.

'The queen! I want to see her. I...' he brought out in a chok­ing voice.

Stumbling ahead, he succeeded in grasping the edge of the sacri­ficial table. Then he gasped for air; a convulsive movement shook his thin frame. He fell, dragging the table cover down with him. The sacrificial vessels dropped on to the floor with a loud crash.