The Lacquer Screen

The judge paused. He heard only the heavy breathing of the magistrate behind him.

'One day,' he resumed, 'you began to suspect that your wife had adulterous relations with the young painter Leng Te. She must have first met him at the country house of her elder sister. I assume that they were drawn to each other by the fact that both of them were living under a dark shadow — he knew that he hadn't long to live, and she was married to a cold and cruel husband. You had to be sure, so you followed them secretly to their rendezvous in the house near the west gate, and spied on them. You had covered your face with your neck-cloth, but the woman in charge there remembered your limp. Pan Yoo-te had told me that at about that time you had sprained your ankle. That temporary limp was a good disguise, for it would distract attention from your other features, yet disappear as soon as it was healed. I had forgotten all about it, but last night my assistant Chiao Tai made a remark about Kun-shan's broken ankle, and then I remembered what Pan had told me, and the truth dawned on me.

'The chastity of women is the basis and fundament of our sacred social order, and the law prescribes death for both the adulterous woman and her paramour. Having caught the pair in the act, you could have killed them then and there. Or you could have denounced them to the Prefect, and both would have been decapitated. But your conceit prevented you from taking either of those courses. You couldn't bear to see the carefully built picture of the "eternal lovers" destroyed, you couldn't bear it to become known that your wife had deceived you. You decided to say nothing, but to prepare a scheme to kill your wife without it becoming known that you did so to take revenge for her infidelity, and which would confirm rather than destroy the image of the "eternal lovers" — and all that without running the risk of being prosecuted for murder, of course. Your grandfather's mental disease and the lacquer screen gave you the idea. It was a very clever idea, Teng. You must have brooded over it many an evening, sitting alone in your library here. Perhaps at the same time your wife was meeting her lover in her sister's villa, but that didn't bother you. For you didn't care a pin for her. On the contrary, I think you hated her, be­cause she was a really great poetess, Teng, and you stole your best lines from her work. You were jealous of her talent, and therefore you prevented her from having her poetry published. But I saw her own manuscript copy, and I tell you that you'll never reach that sublime height, Teng.

'You thought out an excellent story. It had all the requirements for becoming a famous tale, told and retold in literary circles all over the Empire, with admiration and sympathy. There was an old family curse, there was a haunting antique screen, there was romance — I for one started by believing every word of it, and I was deeply moved. If all had gone according to plan, you would have killed your wife in a carefully staged fit of insanity. Then you would have denounced yourself to the Prefect, who of course would have acquitted you. You could have retired on a pension and devoted the rest of your life to building up further your fame as a poet. You have no interest in women, so you wouldn't remarry, you would mourn faithfully for your wife till the end of your days.

'I don't doubt that you had an equally ingenious plan for taking revenge on Leng Te. But he died before you could execute that scheme. You gloated over your wife's despair. I hear that the last two weeks you have been exceptionally cheerful, while your wife became ill.

'Kun-shan murdered your wife. She never knew what happened to her, and she died in peace. You entered the dressing-room just after Kun-shan had emptied the full con­tents of his infernal blowpipe there, and the drug over­powered you. When you came to, you thought it had been you who had killed her. That didn't particularly distress you. You then became frantic only because you assumed that too much brooding over your scheme had ended up by really affecting your brain. That priceless brain of the great poet ! You were so worried about yourself that when I came unexpectedly to see you, you didn't have the presence of mind to put into operation your scheme of the lacquer screen. In your confusion you told the steward that stupid he about your wife having gone to visit her sister, and you got rid of me as quickly as possible. However, after the session, when you had calmed down, you realized that my arrival in Wei-ping was a godsend. You now had a witness to confirm your story of the lacquer screen, a colleague who would go with you to the Prefect and whose testimony would lend even more colour to the tragedy. So you sent your headman to summon me, to hear your touching con­fession.'