The Willow Pattern
- Автор: ван Гулик Роберт Ханс
- Серия: Judge Dee #11
- Год: 101
- Язык: английский
- Жанр: Другие детективы
Электронная книга - «The Willow Pattern». Краткое содержание книги:
As Judge Dee copes with the administration of the plague-ridden Imperial Capital, he must also bring his skills to bear on the mystery of two seemingly unconnected murders that could mean the extinction of the city's oldest, most aristocratic families.
The judge cast a cursory glance at the round mirror of polished silver on its black lacquered stand, but the row of small porcelain boxes containing cosmetics seemed to arouse his interest. He opened every one of them, inspecting the powder and different kinds of rouge inside. He seemed completely oblivious of Mrs Mei and Doctor Lew, who were standing by the bedstead, watching Judge Dee with blank faces. The judge now directed his attention to the set for painting eyebrows beside the mirror: a large, square ink-slab of more than two inches thick and five inches square, a thin writing-brush, the cake of ink on its small wooden stand, and the silver water container for moistening the ink-slab prior to rubbing the ink. The surface of the slab was caked with dried ink, and the tip of the brush was black.
He turned round, walked over to the bedstead and parted the blue curtains. A crumpled white silk cover was lying across the bedmat, a red brocade pillow was pushed into a corner. There was a smell of stale cosmetics.
JUDGE DEE IN THE GUEST ROOM OF THE MEI MANSION
Mrs Mei beckoned the housemaster, who had remained outside.
Tell the maids to have this room cleaned and aired at once!’ she told him in a vexed voice.
The housemaster came hurriedly inside.
'Certainly, madam! Is there something wrong, my lord?’ He stared, astonished, at the judge. About to close the bed-curtains again, he had all of a sudden checked himself. He was standing stock-still, his eyes on the floor. Now he stooped, lifted the left curtain's seam, and scrutinized the marble flag just underneath, directly beside the heavy front leg of the bedstead, carved in the shape of a huge lion's paw. Righting himself, he curtly told Tao Gan:
'Have a look at those grey stains on the marble!'
Tao Gan squatted. He wetted the tip of his forefinger and rubbed the stains. He stood up and said:
'It's ink, sir. Old stains. They have been wiped off, but the ink had soaked into the marble. They ought to be scrubbed with sand, then they'd disappear completely.'
Judge Dee was still holding the seam of the curtain in his hand. Now he brought it close to his eyes and examined the smooth satin. Then he turned it over. Nodding slowly he showed Tao Gan a large, dark-brown stain, on the reverse of the seam.
He let the curtain drop, and looked fixedly at Mrs Mei.
'Your husband died here in this room, madam,' he said coldly. 'Murdered.'
Mrs Mei's face turned deadly pale. She quickly stepped back, to Doctor Lew, who was standing still as a graven image.
'Yes, he was murdered,' the judge repeated. 'He was struck down by a blow of that heavy square ink-slab on the dressing-table there. His crushed skull hit the floor right here by this leg of the bedstead. The marble was stained by his blood and by the ink that had been rubbed on the slab shortly before it was used as a murder weapon. Blood and ink were wiped up, but the traces of the ink remained. The seam of the curtain had swept the blood, and the red stain on its reverse remained unnoticed.' Turning to the doctor, he added: 'This, incidentally, explains the ink smudges on the dead man's cheek, doctor.'
Mrs Mei remained silent; she was staring at the judge with wide, unbelieving eyes. Doctor Lew spoke up, nervously:
'I could think of at least a dozen other explanations for the facts you mention, sir! You are famous for your logical mind, my lord. Surely you wouldn't distress Mrs Mei with a foolhardy statement, based on such flimsy evidence?'
The judge gave him a scornful look.
'Of course I would not do that,' he said quietly. 'The clues found here are only secondary evidence. The main point is that you and Mrs Mei lied to me about the time of Mr Mei's death. You stated that Mrs Mei found her husband's body at the bottom of the stairs in the hall at about ten o'clock. That means that he fell down the staircase before that time. But why should he then have taken a burning candle with him, when he left his library to go downstairs? The hall and the gallery upstairs are lit fairly well by the large red lampion, and it burns till midnight.' As Mrs Mei and Dr Lew looked at him, dumbfounded, he crossed his arms and spoke: 'Mrs Mei and Doctor Lew, I arrest you two for the murder of Mr Mei Liang. Call the soldiers who carried our sedan chair, Tao Gan!'
XVIII
About half an hour before the night session of the tribunal, Tao Gan was helping Judge Dee to put on his ceremonial robe, in the ante-room of his private office. Handing the judge his winged cap, Tao Gan remarked:
'I never liked that doctor, sir.'
'Neither did I,' the judge replied dryly. He carefully adjusted the cap in front of the special mirror, mounted on the black lacquered box in which the cap was kept.
'You went to Mei's library to look for a possible murder weapon, didn't you, sir?'
Judge Dee turned round.
'I went there in the first place to verify whether Mei had been writing something just before his death. I was thinking of the black smudges on his cheek, you see. As you yourself pointed out to me, the ink might have spattered accidentally onto his face while he was preparing it by rubbing the ink-cake on the stone slab. I found that he had been reading, however, and that the ink-slab and writing brush on his desk were perfectly clean. I then knew that his head must have been bashed in by another ink-slab; a large and heavy one, that had been used shortly before the murder, and therefore was still wet with ink. I found the murder weapon in the guest-room downstairs.' He looked out through the window and said disconsolately: 'The weather isn't changing, after all.'
'When did you begin to suspect that Mei had been murdered, sir?' Tao Gan asked keenly.
The judge folded his arms.
'Until the housemaster had told me that the lampion in the hall burns till midnight, I had only a vague feeling that something was wrong. A real accident, Tao Gan, can rarely be reconstructed as completely as that which allegedly happened to Mr Mei, you see. Consider the candle dropped at the head of the stairs, the slipper halfway down, the blood on the top of the newel, and the dead man's head lying close to that newel! It was all too pat. It seemed as if someone had deliberately charted the way it happened, so to speak, step by step. Further, the fact that Mrs Mei was a former courtesan and that her husband was twice her age, brought to mind, of course, the all too familiar trio: old husband, young wife, secret lover. That I gave Mrs Mei the benefit of the doubt was because of my high opinion of Mr Mei's staunch character and brilliant mind. I assumed that a man like him would never have chosen the wrong woman. Unfortunately I was quite wrong.'
'The guest-room downstairs was an ideal place for clandestine amorous meetings,' Tao Gan observed.
'That is why I insisted on seeing the room, as soon as the housemaster had told me that it had a back door that gave access to the garden and the street. I did indeed find there all the clues I needed. Mrs Mei had said herself that the room had not been occupied for weeks. Yet the dressing-table had been used quite recently, and by a woman. The covers of the porcelain powder boxes still bore the traces of fingertips, and the set for painting eyebrows had been recently used. And the bedstead had been slept in. The stain on the floor and on the curtain provided the final clues to what had actually happened. Old Mr Mei had evidently surprised the lovers at midnight or thereafter, and one of them killed him by striking his head with the heavy ink-slab, the other acting as accomplice. Then they dragged his dead body to the hall and deposited it at the bottom of the staircase. All was dark there, hence their mistake about the candle Mei had allegedly been carrying.'
Judge Dee paused. Giving his lieutenant a shrewd look, he resumed: