Necklace and Calabash

'Too late. Tell your men to take him down and then off to the mortuary.'

With unsteady steps Judge Dee went over to the desk, righted the armchair and sat down. Lang had been a callous criminal who had fully deserved to be beheaded on the scaffold, but not to be tortured to death in this beastly manner. And he, the judge, was responsible for this outrage. The subdued voice of the captain roused him from his sombre thoughts.

'Two of my men are searching the garden and questioning the servants, sir.'

Judge Dee pointed at the open panel of the garden doors. 'I don't think anyone'll have seen the intruders, Siew,' he said wearily. 'They slipped inside through there. Entered by the back gate, when the cooks were busy preparing the evening rice. That's why they set six as the time for the meeting. The meeting was a ruse, meant to get all Lang's men away from him, so that he could be questioned alone. I made a big mistake, Siew. A very big mistake.'

Slowly caressing his long black beard, he reflected that the scheme accorded well with the tortuous mind of depraved cour­tiers, past masters in double-dealing and deceit. They must have a spy among Lang's men, who had duly informed them that the cashier had not delivered the necklace. Therefore they had not sent Mr Hao to collect it. On second thoughts, however, they had reached the conclusion that Tai Min must have handed the neck­lace to Lang when he had returned to the inn to pack, and that Lang had let him go with the promise of a much bigger reward than agreed upon. And that Lang then had let his men kill the cashier, thus saving for himself their share in the loot, and all further trouble from the cashier. Convinced that Lang had hidden the necklace somewhere in his study, the plotters in the palace had arranged the meeting in the godown, so as to be able to surprise him here in the inn. 'What did you say, Siew?'

'I asked whether you think the bastards found what they came for, sir.'

'They did not. It wasn't there.'

Of that Judge Dee was quite sure. Not because he put it beyond Lang to have engaged in such a piece of double-dealing, but be­cause the cashier would in that case certainly have told his tor­turers that they must take him to their master — hoping that even if he wouldn't be able to bargain with Lang for his life, he would at least gain a little time.

The judge looked on in silence while the two guardsmen took down the corpse. They laid it on a stretcher, covered it with a sheet of canvas, and carried it away. He felt sick and tired of this insane, utterly frustrating case.

'Oh yes, sir, something nearly slipped my mind! Just when I was assembling my men to go to Lang's godown, my agents from Ten Miles Village, on the other side of the mountains, came back. Mrs Wei wasn't there, sir. And they made sure she hadn't been there either.'

Judge Dee said nothing. So that theory of his was wrong too. He had tried his best, but all approaches were coming to a dead end. He asked listlessly:

'What did the gentlemen from the palace say about my escape from your prison?'

'They couldn't say very much, sir, because I took them down to the cell you were supposed to be in, and Liu had done a truly magnificent job there. I didn't like their mean look, however. Lang's murder gives me a good reason for posting six men here in the hall, sir. With strict orders to let no outsider in.'

Judge Dee got up. 'Excellent,' he said, 'I need a good night's sleep.' Together the two men went back to the hall.

The judge had not realized that so many guests were staying at the Kingfisher. The hall was crowded with excited people. One guardsman stood at the main entrance, the other was questioning a few frightened servants in the corner. As soon as the guests saw Captain Siew they besieged him with questions. The captain beckoned Wei, who was standing with Fern and the clerk by the counter. He told the innkeeper:

'Intruders murdered Mr Lang Liu, and ransacked his suite.'

'Holy Heaven! Did they damage my furniture?'

'Go and have a look for yourself!’ the captain told him. As the innkeeper rushed to the corridor, followed by his clerk, Siew addressed the guests: 'You'd better go back to your rooms, gentle­men! There's nothing to worry about, I shall have six men on guard here, all through the night.'

While they were passing the counter Judge Dee told him:

'I'll have a close look at the register. Ought to have done that at once. I don't seem to have done many of the things I ought to have! Well, I'll come to see you early tomorrow morning.'

'You seem to be very friendly with that fresh captain!’ Fern remarked.

'He wanted my opinion on the time of death. Could you give me the inn's register, please?'

She pulled out the upper drawer and handed him the bulky guest-book. Putting her elbows on the counter, she watched the judge as he leafed through it. The names did not tell him much. Except for Lang and his men, all seemed to be bona-fide merchants, and all had arrived one or more days earlier than Judge Dee. He would leave it to the captain to go into their antecedents.