The Lacquer Screen

He let himself down heavily into the old rattan armchair. Judge Dee and Carnation went out into the hot street.

The girl walked a few paces ahead of the judge, as was customary for a prostitute taking a client with her. If a man went out with his wife she would, on the contrary, walk a few paces behind him.

Carnation knew many short-cuts. Soon they entered a quiet street lined with prosperous-looking, middle-class houses. It seemed a quarter of retired shopkeepers. She halted before a high door, neatly lacquered black. Nothing indicated that it was a house of assignation.

Judge Dee knocked, but when a portly lady dressed in black damask opened, it was Carnation who spoke first and asked for a room. This indicated that it had been she who suggested the address to the customer, and thus was entitled to a commission.

Smiling, the madame let them into a small sitting-room. She said they could have the best room for the afternoon, on payment of three strings of coppers. The judge protested and, after long haggling, they agreed on two strings. The judge paid and she took them upstairs to a large and richly furnished bedroom. After she had left, Carnation said:

'This really is the best room in the house. You can be sure that the lady used this one for meeting her lover.'

'We shall search it!' Judge Dee said.

'You'll have to wait a bit. Soon the woman'll be coming back with the tea. Don't forget to give her a small tip then, it's the custom.' Seeing that Judge Dee was going to sit down at the tea-table, she said casually: 'I don't know what you have in mind, but anyway we'd better change into bed-robes. The people here have sharp eyes. They'll get suspicious if we don't act like other guests.'

She went to the dressing-table, took off her jacket and her robe and stepped out of her wide trousers. Judge Dee dis­robed also, and put on the clean bed-robe of white gauze that was hanging ready on the lacquered clothes-rack next to the bedstead. Carnation was standing naked in front of the dressing-table, washing herself with the unconcern of mem­bers of her trade. It struck the judge that she had a shapely body. When she bent over, his eye fell on the thin white scars that ran criss-cross over her back and hips.

'Who has been maltreating you?' he asked angrily. 'The Corporal?'

'Oh no,' she said indifferently. 'It's already more than a year ago. I wasn't sold to the brothel as a child, you know. I was sixteen already, and I didn't like the work, so I got a whipping now and then. But I was lucky. One day the Corporal came along and took a fancy to me. He told my owner that he wanted to buy me out. The man showed him the receipt for forty silver pieces that my father had signed when he sold me.' She turned round and put on the bed-robe. Fastening the silk sash, she continued with a smile: 'My owner was just starting to count up the other expenses that would have to be refunded, when the Corporal grabbed the paper from him and said: "All right, the deal is closed!" When my owner asked about the money, the Cor­poral just glared at him and said: "I just paid you, didn't I? Or would you call me a liar?" You should have seen the fellow's sour face! But he produced a smile and stammered, "Yes, sir, thank you, sir!" and the Corporal took me along. My owner knew that, if he complained to his guild or to the tribunal, the Corporal would come with his men and smash all his furniture. I certainly was lucky. The Corporal may be a bit short-tempered, but he's a good fellow at heart. And I don't mind those scars, they are my badge of trade, so to speak!'

While listening to her the judge had been pulling out the drawers of the dressing-table. 'There's nothing here,' he said, 'absolutely nothing.'

'What did you expect?' the girl asked, sitting down on the edge of the bedstead. 'Everybody who comes here takes good care to leave nothing that might show their identity. They know that these houses are not averse to a bit of black­mail, at times. Your best chance is the inscriptions and pic­tures put up inside the bedstead here. They are signed only with pen-names, I've always heard, but, since you can read, you might find something there.'

The woman came in with a large tray, loaded with a tea­pot and platters of fresh fruit and candy. Judge Dee gave her a handful of coppers, and she left with a polite smirk.

Carnation drew the curtains aside and entered the bed­stead. Judge Dee took off his cap and placed it on the tea-table. Then he stepped up into the large bedstead also, and sat down cross-legged on the spotless reed-mat. The bedstead was a small room in itself. Its back and side walls were made of carved blackwood, the panelling reaching high up to the canopy. Carnation was kneeling in front of the back wall, carefully forcing a hair-needle into a fissure of the wood.

'What are you doing there?' the judge asked curiously.

'I jammed the door of the secret peephole,' she replied. 'I don't think there'll be customers for it this early in the day, but you never know. And anyway we don't want them to discover what we're up to.'

She sat down opposite the judge and leaned back against the large pillow.

Judge Dee reflected that he certainly was picking up much useful knowledge. Before his marriage to his First Lady he had occasionally associated with the high-class courtesans of the capital, but he was ignorant of the customs of common houses of prostitution, and the depraved tastes they catered for. He raised his head and, caressing his side-whiskers, began to study one by one the sheets inscribed with poems and pictures that had been inserted into the many square and round frames in the panelling. The bedsteads of married couples are usually decorated with inscriptions and pictures of an edifying kind, alluding to the deep meaning of the married state, and to virtuous men and women of antiquity. Here, however, they were of course of a more frivolous nature. Literary people who visit houses of assignation and brothels often amuse themselves by jotting down a few impromptu verses or making a few sketches. If those are cleverly done, the management will use them for decorating the inside of the bed. When they have faded, they are torn down and replaced by new ones. The judge read aloud a couplet, written in a flowing, scholarly hand :