Poets and Murder

'No, thank you. I must fetch something from my room, then go out on an errand downtown.'

'Where are your quarters here in the compound, sir?'

'I stay in the fox shrine, right corner of the main court­yard.'

'Yes, Lo told me there was such a shrine here,' the judge said with a faint smile.

'Why shouldn't Magistrate Lo maintain a fox shrine, pray?' the sexton asked belligerently. 'Foxes are an integral part of universal life, Dee. Their world is as important or unimportant as ours. And just as there exist special affinities between two human beings, so some human beings are linked to a special animal. Don't forget that the signs of the zodiac that influence our destinies consist of animals, Judge!’ He studied Judge Dee's face intently, rubbing his stubbly cheeks. Suddenly he asked, 'You were born in the year of the Tiger, weren't you?' When the judge nodded, the sexton's thick lips curved in a smirking grin that gave his ugly face a toad-like appearance. 'A tiger and a fox! Couldn't be better!’ Abruptly his heavy features slackened; deep lines showed beside his fleshy nose. 'You'd better look sharp, Dee!’ he said in a dull voice. "There was one murder here last night, I hear, and things are shaping up for a second murder. That file under your arm is marked Yoo-lan, and she has a death sentence hanging over her head. Soon there'll be more dead walking with you, Dee!’ He raised his large round head and again looked past the judge, a strange glint in his bulging eyes.

Judge Dee shivered involuntarily. He wanted to speak, but the sexton resumed, in his former querulous, rasping voice:

'Don't expect any help from me, Judge. I consider human justice a paltry makeshift, and I shan't lift a finger to catch a murderer! Murderers catch themselves. Run around in circles even narrower than those of others. Never escape. See you tonight, Dee!'

He marched off, his straw sandals making a flapping sound on the court's pavement.

The judge looked after him, then quickly went inside, irritated at his own discomfiture.

The servants had drawn the curtains of the canopied bed­stead in the rear of his room. He noticed with satisfaction the large padded tea-basket on the centre table, beside the tall pewter candlestick. Standing at the dressing-table, he rubbed his face and neck with the scented towel the servants had put ready in the brass basin. This made him feel better. Sexton Loo was just an eccentric, and such people liked to make extra­vagant statements. He pushed the table close to the open sliding-doors, and sat down facing his rock garden. Then he opened the dossier.

On top was Lo's biographical note on the poetess, about twenty folio sheets. It was an ably written account, so care­fully phrased that the judge suspected that Lo planned to append it to his edition of Yoo-lan's poetical works. It stated all the relevant facts, sketching the background in veiled terms that could not give offence, but left no doubt about what was meant. After he had read the account carefully, the judge leaned back in his chair. Folding his arms, he went over in his mind Yoo-lan's checkered career.

The poetess was the only daughter of a small drug-shop clerk in the capital, a self-educated amateur of literature, who had taught her to read and write when she was only five years old. He was a bad financier, however. When she was fifteen, he had got so deeply in debt that he had to sell her to a famous brothel. During the four years she spent there, she assiduously cultivated old and young men of letters, and through these liaisons made rapid progress in all the elegant arts, showing a particular talent for poetry. At nineteen, when she was well on the way to becoming a fully-fledged, popular courtesan, she suddenly disappeared. The guild of brothel-keepers sent out their best men to find her, for she represented a considerable investment, but they failed to trace her. Two years later she was discovered by accident in a low-class hostel up-country, destitute and ill. The man who found her was the young poet Wen Tung-yang, famous for his cutting wit, his good looks, and his vast inherited wealth. He had met her in the capital, and was still in love with her. He paid off all her debts, and she became his inseparable companion. No elegant gathering in the capital was deemed complete without the presence of Wen and Yoo-lan. Wen published a collection of poems they had written for each other, and these were cited in literary milieus all over the country. The pair travelled extensively, visiting all the famous scenic spots of the Empire, welcomed everywhere by famous men of letters, and often staying on for months in a place that caught their fancy. Their association lasted four years. Then Wen suddenly left her, having fallen in love with an itinerant female acrobat.

Yoo-lan left the capital for Szuchuan, where she used the generous parting present Wen had given her to purchase a beautiful country place. There she settled down with a bevy of maids and singing-girls, and her villa became the centre of intellectual and artistic life in that remote province. She granted her favours to carefully selected admirers only, all prominent men of letters and high officials who showered her with costly presents. Arrived at that point, Magistrate Lo hadn't been able to resist the temptation of quoting the hack­neyed line, 'Each of her poems was valued at one thousand ounces of gold'. Lo also mentioned that Yoo-lan had a number of close girl friends, and some of her best poems were addressed to them. Read in connection with the fact that after a couple of years she had to leave Szuchuan abruptly because of com­plications caused by one of her students, the daughter of a local Prefect, the implication was obvious.