Poets and Murder
- Автор: ван Гулик Роберт Ханс
- Серия: Judge Dee #16
- Язык: английский
- Жанр: Другие детективы
Электронная книга - «Poets and Murder». Краткое содержание книги:
Master detective Judge Dee sets out to solve a puzzling double murder and discovers that complicated passions lurk beneath the seemingly tranquil landscape of academic life. A student has been murdered; a beautiful poetess is accused of whipping her maidservant to death; and further mysteries lie in the shadows of the Shrine of the Black Fox.
'Well, what I said just now about my whipping that maid to death was perfectly true. Only read Shao for Soong. I never met that unfortunate student, only heard about him from Shao yesterday. Poor Saffron had told Shao everything about Soong, you see. Shao went to Soong's lodging late at night, knocked on his back door and told him he had information on General Mo's case. The student let him inside, and Shao killed him with an old carpenter's compass saw he had found among the rubbish by Soong's garden gate. He told me he had a dagger with him, but that it was always better to use a weapon found on the spot. That's why he killed the dancer with the scissors. Shao's only worry was that Soong might have got hold of evidence regarding Shao's adultery with his mother, perhaps old letters or something. He searched Soong's lodging, but there was nothing. Pour me another cup, Sexton!’
After she had emptied the wine cup, slowly this time, she went on:
'Needless to say, after Shao had helped me to bury the maid's body, I didn't tell him to go away! No, I begged him, begged him on my knees, to stay, to come back to me! He replied he was sorry he hadn't seen me whipping her, but that it was his duty to report me to the authorities. He went away, laughing. I knew he would denounce me, and therefore I laid that clumsy false trail. When I was told about the anonymous letter, I knew that Shao had written it, and that he wanted to destroy me. He knew my stupid, abject devotion, knew I would never tell on him, even if my life depended on it!' Shaking her head despondently, she raised her hand and pointed at the pillar. 'See how I loved him! That poem there I composed when we were still together.'
Suddenly she glared at Judge Dee and snapped:
'When you were drawing your treacherous noose about him tighter and tighter, it was as if you were strangling me! Therefore I spoke up. Piecing together what I knew, I tried to save him. But you heard the last words he said.'
She set her wine cup down and rose. Putting her coiffure in order with a few deft movements of her shapely hands, she resumed casually:
'Now that Shao is dead, I could of course have said that it was he who whipped the maid to death. He was quite capable of doing just that. But now that he's dead, I want to die too. I could've thrown myself into the gorge after him, but that would have cost the sergeant there his life. Besides, somehow or other I have my pride too, and although I've done many things I shouldn't have done, I have never been a coward. I killed the maid, and I am going to take what's coming to me.' Turning to the Court Poet, she said with a faint smile, 'It has been a privilege to have known you, Chang, for you are a great poet. You, Sexton, I admire, because I've come to know you as a truly wise man. And I am grateful to you, Lo, for your staunch friendship. As to you, Magistrate Dee, I am sorry I snapped at you just now. My relationship with Shao was doomed to come to a disastrous end sooner or later, and you only did your duty. It's all for the best, for now that Shao had retired and could move about more freely than before, he was planning new evil deeds to keep himself amused. And I am finished anyway. Good-bye.'
She turned to the sergeant. He put the chains on her and led her away, followed by the two soldiers.
The Court Poet sat hunched up in his chair, his thin face a sickly grey. Slowly rubbing his forehead, he muttered:
'I've a splitting headache! And to think that I had been longing for a really shattering experience!' He got up and said brusquely, 'let's go back to town, Lo.' Suddenly he smiled bleakly. 'Heavens, Lo, your career is made! The highest honours are in store for you, you'll be ...'
'I know what's in store for me right now, sir,' the small magistrate interrupted dryly. 'Namely to sit at my desk for the rest of the night, writing my official report. Please go ahead to the palankeen, sir, I'll be with you in a moment.'
After the poet had gone, Lo gave the judge a long look. His lips twitching, he stammered:
'That ... that was terrible, Dee. She ... she ... ' His voice broke.
Judge Dee laid his hand lightly on his colleague's arm.
'You shall finish her biography, Lo, quoting every word she said just now. Thus your edition of her works will do full justice to her, and she shall live on in her poetry for generations to come. You go down together with Chang, for I'd like to stay here for a while, Lo. I need a little time to sort things out in my mind. Get the clerks to prepare everything in the chancery. Presently I shall join you there, give you a hand with drawing up all the official documents.' He looked after the departing magistrate for a while, then turned to the sexton and asked, 'What about you, sir?'
'I'll keep you company, Dee. Let's draw up our chairs to the balustrade, and enjoy the moon. We've come here to celebrate the Moon Festival, after all!’
The two men sat down, their backs to the half-cleared table. They were all alone in the pavilion, for as soon as Magistrate Lo had left, the servants had slipped away to the kitchen in the forest, eager to discuss the strange happenings.
The judge silently stared at the mountain range opposite. He thought that in the eerie moonlight he could nearly distinguish every single tree. Suddenly he said:
'You are interested in Saffron, sir, the guardian of the Shrine of the Black Fox. I regret to inform you that she got rabies and died this afternoon.'
Sexton Loo nodded his large round head.
'I know. When I came up the mountain path I saw a black fox, for the first time in my life. Had one glimpse of its lithe, long shape, its sleek black fur. Then it streaked into the bushes and disappeared... .' He rubbed his stubbly cheeks, making a rasping sound. Still looking at the moon, he asked casually: 'Did you have definite proof against the Academician, Dee?'
'Not a shred, sir. But the poetess thought I had, and it was she who solved everything. If she hadn't spoken up, I would have blustered on for a while, my argument would have petered out with a vague theory. The Academician would have called it an interesting exercise in deduction, and that would've been the end of it. He knew perfectly well, of course, that I didn't have any proof against him. He killed himself not because he feared legal action, but only because his gigantic, superhuman pride would not allow him to live with the knowledge that someone pitied him.'
The sexton nodded again.
'It was quite a drama, Dee. A human drama, where foxes happened to act a part. But we shouldn't look at everything from the limited point of view of our small world of man. There are many other worlds, overlapping ours, Dee. From the point of view of the world of foxes, this was a fox drama, where a few human beings happened to act a minor part.'
'You may be right, sir. It seems to have begun about forty years ago, when Saffron's mother, then a young girl, brought a small black fox home. I don't know.' The judge stretched his long legs. 'I do know, however, that I am dog-tired!’
The other gave him a sidelong look.
'Yes, you'd better rest for a while, Dee. You and I, each in his own chosen direction, have still a long way to go. A very long and weary way.'
The sexton leaned back in his chair and looked up at the bright moon with his bulging, unblinking eyes.
POSTSCRIPT
JUDGE DEE was a historical person; he lived from 630 to 700 A.D., and was a brilliant detective and famous statesman of the Tang dynasty. The adventures related in the present novel are entirely fictitious, however, and the other characters introduced imaginary, with the exception of the poetess 'Yoo-lan'. For her I took as model the famous poetess Yu Hsuan-chi, who lived from ca. 844 to ca. 871. She was indeed a courtesan, who after a checkered career ended her life on the scaffold, accused of having beaten a maidservant to death; but the question of whether she was guilty or not has never been resolved. For more details about her career and her work, the reader is referred to my book Sexual Life in Ancient China (E. J. Brill, Leyden, 1961), pp. 172-175. The poem quoted on p. 155 of the present novel was actually written by her.