The Lacquer Screen
- Автор: ван Гулик Роберт Ханс
- Серия: Judge Dee #8
- Язык: английский
- Жанр: Другие детективы
Электронная книга - «The Lacquer Screen». Краткое содержание книги:
Early in his career, Judge Dee visits a senior magistrate who shows him a beautiful lacquer screen on which a scene of lovers has been mysteriously altered to show the man stabbing his lover. The magistrate fears he is losing his mind and will murder his own wife. Meanwhile, a banker has inexplicably killed himself, and a lovely lady has allowed Dee's lieutenant, Chiao Tai, to believe she is a courtesan. Dee and Chiao Tai go incognito among a gang of robbers to solve this mystery, and find the leader of the robbers is more honorable than the magistrate.
One of the most satisfyingly devious of the Judge Dee novels, with unusual historical richness in its portrayal of the China of the T'ang dynasty.-—New York Times Book Review
Even Judge Dee is baffled by Robert van Gulik's new mysteries in The Lacquer Screen. Disguised as a petty crook, he spends a couple of precarious days in the headquarters of the underworld, hobnobbing with the robber king. Dee's lively thieving friends furnish some vital clues to this strange and fascinating jigsaw.-—The Spectator
So scrupulously in the classic Chinese manner yet so nicely equipped with everything to satisfy the modern reader.-—New York Times
Robert Van Gulik (1910-67) was a Dutch diplomat and an authority on Chinese history and culture. He drew his plots from the whole body of Chinese literature, especially from the popular detective novels that first appeared in the seventeenth century.
'If you stay here long enough, Dee, my jail will be too small!'
'We'll hear the prisoners tomorrow morning,' Judge Dee said with an impassive face. 'I beg you to appoint me your Assessor at the start of the session, so that I can question some of them personally. Good night!'
He gave Pan and Chiao Tai his instructions. Then a servant led him to the guest quarters, behind the large reception hall.
He saw that the guest-room was large and comfortable. He sat down in an armchair, aimlessly following the movements of two servants as they lighted the large silver candelabra on the high wall table, and drew open the silken curtains of the bedstead of carved rosewood. The old steward came in with a large tray of tea and cold refreshments, followed by a sleepy maid who hung a clean bed-robe on the rack of red lacquer. The steward poured him a cup of hot tea, then ht a stick of incense in front of the large landscape painting that decorated the side wall. He bowed, wished the judge an obsequious good night, and left.
Judge Dee leaned back in the armchair and slowly sipped his tea. Then, with a tired gesture, he lifted his left arm and took from his sleeve Kun-shan's blowpipe. With a sigh he put it on the table. He ought to have thought of that possibility. The chambermaid who slept through all the commotion, not waking up even when Teng let the vase shatter on the marble floor, the serene face of the dead woman — those facts should have told him at once that they had been drugged. And there had been no coincidence. Magistrate Teng had not had an attack of insanity, he had been overpowered by the large dose of the drug that Kun-shan had released in the dressing-room just before he fled. And Mrs Teng had been dead already when her husband entered the dressing-room and saw her through the bedroom door that stood ajar.
He vaguely heard the wooden gong of the nightwatch passing through the street outside the tribunal. In a few hours it would be dawn. He didn't think he could sleep.
His eye fell on the elegant small book-rack of polished bamboo standing in the corner. He got up and selected a volume bound in costly brocade. He opened it and found it was a special edition of Magistrate Teng's poetry, printed on the most expensive paper, glossy as white jade. With an angry exclamation he pushed it back among the other books. He took another volume at random, and sat down with it. It was a Buddhist text. Slowly he read the beginning aloud:
He closed the book. As a follower of Confucius he was not partial to Buddhist teachings. But the lines he had just read accorded surprisingly well with his present mood.
He fell asleep as he was sitting there, with the book in his lap.
XVI
Chiao Tai came to report shortly after dawn, when Judge Dee was making his toilet. He said, while the judge was combing his beard:
'The Corporal and the Student are under lock and key, in the jail here. At one moment it looked as if there was going to be a bad fight. The bald man and the others drew their knives and wanted to defend the Corporal. But he barked at them: "Didn't I tell you I want no knife fighting? I am through, Baldy takes over!" Then he let the constables put the chains on him.'
Judge Dee nodded. He said:
'I have one more task for you. Borrow a horse from the guards and go to the country house of Mrs Teng's elder sister, outside the north gate. Find out where Mrs Teng's two other sisters are living. Then, on your way back, buy two bolts of superior silk, as used for ladies' dresses, in a good silk shop. Here is some money.' He gave Chiao Tai ten silver pieces, and added: 'If you are back before the session of the tribunal is over, you can join me behind the bench and follow the proceedings!'
Chiao Tai hastily took his leave, for he was eager to attend the session. Judge Dee drank a cup of hot tea, then walked over to Pan Yoo-te's office.
The old counsellor told him that Magistrate Teng had left it to Judge Dee to prepare the morning session. The judge asked:
'Did you draw up the report of our discovering Ko's body?'
Fan gave him a few sheets of paper. The judge read them through carefully. He corrected a few sentences in such a manner that all the credit for the discovery went to Pan, then signed and sealed the documents. Handing the papers back, he said:
'After I have been installed as Assessor, Magistrate Teng will hear Kun-shan. I shall interfere only if the accused should try to prevaricate. Then I myself shall hear Mrs Ko, and finally the magistrate and I together shall hear the banker Leng Chien. Here you have two drafts, each for three hundred and fifty gold pieces. They represent about two-thirds of the money Leng Chien stole from Ko Chih-yuan. Fill in the Ko estate as payee; the money rightfully belongs to them.' He took from his sleeve the heavy package that Chiao Tai had found in Kun-shan's sleeve. Opening it, he continued: 'Here are four gold bars, to the value of two hundred gold pieces. It was Ko's emergency fund, but Kun-shan stole it from Ko's safe. Transfer this gold to the Ko estate too. There remain three hundred gold pieces which Leng deposited with the Heavenly Rain gold shop. Have it confiscated, to be restored to the Ko family also, in due time.'
Pan wrote out receipts for the drafts and the gold. Handing the documents to the judge, he said with a grateful smile:
'You found the culprit and recovered all the money, sir! How is it possible that you achieved all that in such a short time?'
'There were helpful circumstances,' Judge Dee said vaguely. 'Could you lend me a decent robe and cap to wear in court?'
The counsellor called a clerk. He came back with a long robe of blue damask and a black velvet cap with gold braid. Judge Dee put the robe on over his own, stuffed his worn cap in his sleeve and placed the gold-rimmed one on his head. In this dignified attire he walked back to the guest quarters and ordered a simple breakfast from the steward.
When he had laid down his chopsticks he went out into the small rock garden behind his bedroom and walked round it, his hands behind his back. He felt tired and restless. At last three loud beats on the bronze gong at the main gate announced that the morning session of the tribunal was about to begin.
He found Magistrate Teng waiting for him in his private office behind the court hall. Teng wore his green official robe, and the winged black judge's cap. Together they passed through the unicorn screen-curtain and ascended the dais. Teng insisted that Judge Dee sit on his right.
The news of the night's commotion in Ko Chih-yuan's residence, and the arrest of Mrs Ko and the others, had spread through the entire city. The court hall was packed with a dense crowd. Many more spectators who had not been able to obtain a place inside jostled each other just outside the entrance of the hall.
When Magistrate Teng had called the roll, he started filling out the forms which made Judge Dee Assessor of the court. Pausing with lifted writing-brush, he asked:
'How many days shall I put in for the term of your assignment, Dee?'
'One,' the judge replied. 'Today only.'
Teng signed and sealed the forms, and passed them on to Judge Dee, who did the same. Then Magistrate Teng wrote out a slip for the warden of the jail, and Kun-shan was led before the bench. Two constables had to support him by his arms. His ankle had been put in a splint. The thin man looked more dead than alive. Judge Dee remembered Chiao Tai's description when they had seen Kun-shan for the first time, on the terrace of the teahouse: a loathsome insect that has just crawled out of its shell.