The Willow Pattern

XIX

The squat, broad shape of Hoo appeared in the arched door opening, escorted by two soldiers. He wore a hunter's hood on his head, and a long brown riding robe, fastened with a leather belt. Evidently he had been preparing to go out hunting when he was arrested. Since no formal charge had been made against him yet, he had been allowed to retain his own clothes in jail.

He remained standing there a moment, sombrely survey­ing the hall. The soldier nudged him, and he walked on in his shambling, awkward gait. He cast a casual look at the reed mat, then walked on to the bench.

'Kneel here on this side!' the captain ordered him quickly. He pointed with his sword to the corner of the platform, as far as possible from the mat that covered the dead woman.

Judge Dee rapped his gavel.

'Hoo Pen,' he said gravely, 'you stand accused of having murdered Mr Mei Liang, by striking him on the head with a heavy ink-slab, in the guest-room of his own house.'

Ma Joong and Chiao Tai exchanged a bewildered look. Tao Gan sat up straight in his chair, fixing the judge with an incredulous stare.

Hoo had lifted his large head.

'So she betrayed me!’ he said dully.

Judge Dee leaned forward in his chair.

'No,' he said quietly, 'she did not betray you. You betrayed yourself. Last night, when I came to see you.'

Hoo fastened his eyes on the judge. He opened his mouth to speak, but Judge Dee went on quickly:

'When you were telling me and my assistant the true story of the Willow Pattern, you were evidently labouring under a strong emotion. You told it as if it happened to you yourself instead of to your great-grandfather, and a hundred years ago. Admittedly it is a pathetic tale. But you must have heard it told and retold uncounted times in the family circle. Why should this old tale of bygone days disturb you so? I suspected that you too had once redeemed a courtesan, probably sacrificing the last portion of your family fortune, and that she had left you to marry a rich man.'

He paused. Hoo remained silent. He glared broodingly at the judge from under his thick eyebrows.

'Second,' Judge Dee resumed, 'when I informed you that Mr Yee was dead, you at once inquired about his eye. Now, the street jingle about the impending doom of the three houses, Mei, Hoo and Yee, mentions three ways of dying, in the ambiguous, oracular language those jingles always employ. Namely, by losing one's bed, by losing one's eye, and by losing one's head. The jingle did not specify to whom of the three each manner of dying applied. Yee had been killed by a fearful blow that destroyed the left half of his face. The killer had left in a hurry, without taking time, of course, to verify how the blow had affected Yee's eye. It struck me that you inquired at once after Yee's eye, remarking at the same time that you might die by losing your head. I thought that very strange, for your remark implied that you were very sure that Mr Mei had died by what the street song called "losing his bed". But Mei had died by falling down a staircase! I couldn't make head or tail of it. I didn't try to draw any conclusions, but I kept the facts in mind.'

The judge leaned back in his chair. Slowly caressing his sidewhiskers, he continued:

'Thereafter, however, I learned from a reliable source that Mrs Mei had been a courtesan, of a brothel in the old city. And that she had been bought by an unknown person, whom she subsequently left for the wealthy Mr Mei. These events bore a striking similarity to the story of the Willow Pattern you told about your great-grandfather. It brought to mind a curious incident. When Mrs Mei came to see me, she winced when she noticed the Willow Pattern on a plate with cakes I offered her. And, more curious still, a puppeteer told me that a prostitute called Sapphire had disappeared from a brothel in the old city, under mysterious circum­stances. Sapphire — the name of the courtesan your ancestor had bought out! And Mrs Mei showed a marked preference for that same stone. Odd coincidences. Yet I did not consider these facts as evidence that you were the man who had bought Mrs Mei out, and that you had remained her lover even after her marriage to Mei, with the implication that Mei instead of having died an accidental death had been murdered by the two of you. In the first place, I had no proof that Mei had indeed been murdered, and moreover I refused to believe that a worldly-wise and experienced man like Mei would have married a depraved woman. I did have you arrested, but that was because of quite another charge that had been brought against you.'

Now Hoo wanted to speak, but the judge raised his hand.

'No, listen to me. I have a definite purpose in telling you all this. Well, tonight everything became clear. I discovered that Mr Mei had been brutally done to death. The murderer had bashed in the old man's head with a heavy ink-slab, and just before or after the deed he had kicked and beaten his victim in a ferocious manner. The body was covered by bad bruises, which we had wrongly ascribed to his hitting the edges of the steps while falling down. Then I also knew for sure why you had connected Mei's death with "losing his bed"; you interpreted that term as meaning that Mei died by losing his nuptial couch, because of his wife commit­ting adultery. That meant that you had been Mrs Mei's lover, and that you murdered him when the old man sur­prised you with his wife in the guest-room. And thus the full meaning of your interpretation of the jingle was clarified. Mei had died by "losing his bed". If Yee's death had involved his losing his eye, the logical consequence was that you would lose your head; meaning that Mei's murder would be discovered and that you would die on the scaffold.

'Finally, the fact that it was you who had bought out Mrs Mei explained why Mei had kept the antecedents of his wife secret; it was not his secret alone, but also yours. A drama of conflicting passions among the leaders of the "old world", a world now rapidly fading away.'

The judge paused. Hoo's face was taut, but he did not speak.

'I explain all this to you, Mr Hoo, because I consider it my duty to Mrs Mei to prove that I discovered your guilt entirely by myself, and not through her betraying you. When she was standing here before my bench a few minutes ago, she didn't as much as mention your name. On the contrary, she insisted that it had been she who had murdered her husband. Because she had got tired of his attentions.'

Hoo came to his feet. Grasping the edge of the bench with his large hairy hands, he rasped:

'Where is she?'

'She is dead,' the judge said soberly. 'After she had made her confession she died right here. Of the plague.'

He pointed at the reed mat.

Hoo turned round and stared at the reed mat with wide eyes, his bushy eyebrows knit in a deep frown. His lips moved but no sound came forth. Again a faint rumble of thunder sounded afar off.

Suddenly Hoo uttered a half-suppressed, nearly animal moan. He stepped up to the reed mat. The captain rushed up to him to hold him back, but Judge Dee shook his head.

A MAN MEETS HIS DEAD MISTRESS

Hoo lifted the edge of the mat, uncovering her arm, and took her slender white hand in his. Having stroked it gently, he then removed with infinite care the ring set with the sapphire, kissed it, and put it on his own little finger. After he had covered the hand again he rose, and resumed his former place in front of the bench. Looking up at the judge, he said in a toneless voice:

'I beg to be allowed to wear this ring on the scaffold. I gave it to her when I had redeemed her.' When Judge Dee nodded his assent, Hoo bent his head and went on slowly, his eyes on the ring: 'She was still a young girl then... . A small, frightened girl. Her name was Sapphire, the same as that of the courtesan my great-grandfather had bought. "This is no coincidence," I told her, "it's the will of Heaven. Your love will make up for all the suffering the Sapphire of old caused my family." ' He shook his large head. 'Why did she change, after our first happy years? Was it because she could not forget that I had bought her over the counter, so to speak? I don't know. When she left me, she did so with only a few words. "Mei is rich and you are poor," she said. "Life still owes me so much... . Brocade dresses, costly jewels, many maids to do my bidding... ." That is what she said.'

Turning the ring round on his finger, he went on: Tet, all the luxury Mei gave her did not make her happy. She had love affairs, many of them. I was sad, because I knew it meant she was unhappy, and lonely. One day, she called me. She said she had not been able to forget me, the man who had redeemed her. Did she mean it? I didn't know. I only knew that I was happy again. Then the sickness came. I told her she should leave, but she said no, for with the servants away, and old Mei gadding about in the market the whole day, we could meet more often. But last week she said: "This can't go on. I must leave this city, a city of death and decay. I want to start anew, in a far-away place." "Can I go with you?" I asked. "I don't know," she replied wearily. "I love you, but you would always remind me of the past. The past I want to forget." '

He fell silent. Judge Dee had been listening, sitting motionless in his armchair. Now he asked:

'What happened exactly on the fatal night?'

Hoo looked up, startled from his thoughts.

'What happened, you say? She had told me to come towards midnight. To the guest-room, as usual. Old Mei had gone up to sleep long before, she said. We had left the bedcurtains drawn back, the only light came from the candle on her dressing-table. Suddenly the moon door opened, and old Mei came inside. He was dressed in his houserobe, his tousled grey head bare. "Kill him!" she told me. "I can't stand the sight of him. Not any longer!" I got up, but old Mei shook his head. "You needn't kill me, Hoo," he said. "Take her away with you. You bought her, she belongs rightfully to you." She jumped up and went to revile him, but he raised his hand. "I know that you have been unhappy here," he said, "and your going away with Hoo is your last chance. Perhaps you'll find what you are looking for, at last." Shaking his head, he added with that sanctimonious air of his: "If you knew how I pity you! " Those words cut me to the quick. He forgive her? Only I had the right to forgive her! In a blind rage I grabbed the ink-slab, struck him down and kicked that miserable thin body of his about. I stopped only when she put her arms round me, and told me to desist'

He passed his hand over his moist face.

'We sat down together on the edge of the bed, without saying a word. What was there to say? At last she spoke up. "I have decided that you shall go with me," she said. "We shall drag the body to the hall, to the foot of the marble staircase. Make it appear that he fell down, earlier in the night. After a few days we shall leave. Together." We dragged the body to the hall and arranged a few clues there to prove that he had indeed had an accident. Then I left, through the garden door. That's all.'

Four black men, their heads covered by hoods, entered the court hall. They rolled the body in the reed mat, with the ease of much practice. Then they wrapped it up in a sheet of canvas. Hoo's eyes followed them as they carried their burden away.

Judge Dee gave a sign to the orderlies. Again the two men read aloud their notes in their high-pitched sing-song voices. They were nearly through when a flash of lightning lit up the high windows. There was a deafening thunder­clap, followed by the clatter of rain against the oil-paper of the windowpanes.

The judge turned round in his chair.

'The rain has come,' he said to his lieutenants. 'At last!'

The captain had taken the document drawn up by the orderlies. Now he held it up for Hoo, who put his thumb-mark on it. Judge Dee rose. He straightened his robe and spoke:

'Hoo Pen, there has also been brought forward against you another capital charge. I need not go into that, how­ever, for your confessing to the murder of Mr Mei Liang, a good man and benefactor of the people, amply suffices for your indictment. This court herewith sentences the accused Hoo Pen to death by decapitation. Martial law requires that this sentence is executed forthwith.'

He sat down again, took up his writing-brush and filled in the official form. Having impressed his seal on it, he turned round in his chair and handed it to Chiao Tai. 'You, Colonel, will immediately take the necessary measures, together with Colonel Ma. Tao Gan shall witness the execution on my behalf, and draw up the official report.' He rapped his gavel.

Two soldiers stepped up to Hoo, but he did not see them. His eyes were on the ring on his finger. Slowly he turned it round and round. The large sapphire sparkled with a blue light. One of the soldiers tapped him on his shoulder. He turned round and meekly let them lead him away, his broad shoulders sagging in the wide hunter's cloak.

Judge Dee spoke:

'This court shall convene again early tomorrow morning. Then the accused Doctor Lew shall be sentenced to a long term in prison, for having delivered false testimony, for having suppressed important evidence, and for unprofes­sional behaviour. The court is adjourned.'

Again he rapped his gavel. He rose and walked to the door, his arms folded in his wide sleeves. All present stood stiffly at attention.