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.
'Are you afraid of robbers? ' Judge Dee asked, astonished, as he moistened the writing-brush. As a rule, one registered only one's name and occupation.
'Nothing of the sort!' the manager said crossly. Pushing the book over to Chiao Tai he added importantly: 'My hostel has a high reputation, I can afford to pick my guests!'
'A pity your mother couldn't pick you!' Chiao Tai said as he put their clothes bundle on the floor and took the brush. The judge had written 'Shen Mo, commission agent, 34, from Tai-yuan.' Chiao Tai scrawled next to it: 'Chou Ta, Mr Shen's assistant, 30, from the capital.'
Judge Dee paid three days in advance, and a neatly dressed waiter took them to a simply furnished but very clean room on the third courtyard, far from the noise of the street.
Chiao Tai pushed the outer door open. It gave directly onto the courtyard, paved with marble flagstones. He turned round and scowled at the teapot which the waiter had just placed on the table. He said to the judge:
'We just had tea. This yard here has a beautiful smooth pavement, what about a few rounds of stick-fencing to stretch our legs? Then we might take a bath, and have dinner in a restaurant outside to sample the local specialities.'
'Excellent idea! The long ride from Pien-foo this morning has made me stiff.'
Both stripped down to their baggy trousers. Judge Dee parted his long beard into two strands, which he knotted together at the nape of his neck. They threw their caps on the table and walked out into the courtyard. Chiao Tai shouted at a groom who was standing about there to fetch two fencing sticks.
The judge was an excellent boxer and swordsman, but he had only recently taken up, under Chiao Tai's guidance, the art of stick-fencing. This was not considered a sport suitable for gentlemen, being popular only among highway robbers and vagabonds. But Judge Dee found it a good exercise and had become quite fond of it. Chiao Tai was expert at this art, for before entering Judge Dee's service he had been a highwayman, as attested by the numerous scars that covered his broad, deeply tanned chest and his long, muscular arms. One year before, when the judge was on his way to Peng-lai, his first post, Chiao Tai and his blood-brother Ma Joong had attacked him on a lonely road. But Judge Dee's forceful personality had so impressed the two men that they had then and there given up their violent profession, and became his devoted lieutenants. In the past year the judge had found this formidable pair very useful for arresting dangerous criminals and executing other difficult tasks. He gladly made allowance for the fact that they had not yet quite acquired the respectful attitude becoming to a magistrate's lieutenants; he rather enjoyed their frank and outspoken manner.
'I take it that the manager won't mind us fencing here,' Judge Dee said as he took up his stance.
'One peep out of him and I'll smash his head down into his fat belly!' Chiao Tai shouted belligerently. 'Then he can squint at the world through his navel. Mind your backhand swing now!' He went for the judge with a quick blow at his head.
Judge Dee ducked and aimed a long sweeping blow close along the floor at Chiao Tai's ankles. But Chiao Tai jumped over the stick with a supple grace surprising in so heavy a man, and followed up with a swift thrust at Judge Dee's breast which the latter skilfully parried.
For a long time one heard only the clattering of the sticks and the panting of the fencers. Soon a few grooms and waiters gathered in the yard, watching the fight. Intent on this free entertainment, they did not notice that the door behind them was slowly pulled open to a crack. A very thin and ugly man peered round it and watched the two fencers with one glaring eye. He stood there for quite a while, a queer, gangling figure, melting into the shadow behind him. Then he stepped back and closed the door noiselessly.
When the two men stopped, their torsos were dripping with sweat. Chiao Tai threw the sticks to a groom and ordered him to take them to the bath.
There were no other bathers in the large, airy room. It had two pools surrounded by a rail of solid logs of polished pinewood, left its natural colour. The walls were made of the same material, which filled the bathroom with a pleasant out-door scent. The floor was paved with large black tiles. The sturdy attendant, wearing only a loin cloth, took their trousers and hung them on the rack. Then he gave each a small cotton bag filled with a mixture of chaff and lye, and a round tub with hot water. Judge Dee and Chiao Tai scrubbed themselves with the soap-bags. When the attendant was throwing buckets of hot water over them he said:
'You'll like the pool, it has been hewn right from the rock this inn is built on. The hot water comes from the spring underneath. Mind your feet — the stones in the left corner are burning hot.'
The two men stepped over the rail and went down into the pool. The attendant pushed the sliding doors open so that they could enjoy the view of the green banana leaves in the small walled-in garden outside. For a good while Judge Dee and Chiao Tai let themselves soak contentedly in the hot water. Then they sat on the low bamboo bench and had the attendant massage their shoulders, and rub their bodies dry. He gave them linen jackets, and they walked back to their room, completely refreshed.
They had just changed into their own robes and sat down for a cup of tea, when the door opened and a thin, one-eyed man stepped inside.
'That's the rascal we saw in the teahouse!' Chiao Tai exclaimed.
Judge Dee looked annoyed at the repulsive face. He said sourly:
'One usually knocks before entering a room. What do you want? '
'Just a few words with you, Mr . . . Shen.'
'What's your business?' the judge asked. He couldn't place this weird man at all.
'Practically the same as yours! I am a professional thief.'
'Shall I kick him out?' Chiao Tai asked angrily.
'Wait!' Judge Dee said. He was curious to know what all this meant. 'Since you know my name, my friend, you must also know that I am a commission agent.'
The other laughed scornfully.
'Shall I tell you what you really are, the pair of you? '
'Please do!' the judge said affably.
'Do you want the whole story?' the one-eyed man asked again.
'Certainly!' Judge Dee said. The man was intriguing him.
JUDGE DEE AND CHIAO TAI TAKE A BATH
'First, as to you with your beard and your smug face, you smell of the tribunal. Since you are a strong fellow, you must be a former headman of constables. You tortured an innocent prisoner to death, you filched money from the cashbox, or both. Anyway, you had to flee and you took to the road. Your mate is of course a professional highway robber. You work together, you with your solemn face and oily speech strike up acquaintance with unwary travellers, and your mate knocks them down. Now you two have decided you will go for bigger things, and you came down to the city to rob a jewellery shop. But let me tell you two country bumpkins that you'll never get anywhere in the city. Even a child can see that you are crooks!'
Chiao Tai wanted to get up but Judge Dee raised his hand. 'The fellow is quite entertaining!' he said. 'Tell me, what makes you think that we want to commit a burglary in this city?'
The ugly man sighed.
'All right!' he said with exaggerated patience. 'I'll give you a lesson, gratis, for nothing! This afternoon, when that bully there entered the teahouse, I recognized him of course immediately as a highway robber. His build, the way he walks, even I with my one eye could see that. He probably is originally an army deserter, by the way. There's a soldierlike air in the way he carries his shoulders. Then you arrived, I first thought you were a dismissed court clerk. Later I watched you stick-fencing—and damned fools you were to give yourselves away like that !—and I noticed that you also are a hefty bully, but that your skin is white and smooth. So I corrected myself, and placed you as a headman on the run. Well, as if all that were not yet enough, you announced yourselves as strangers by studying a guide-book of this town, and gloated together over the list of jewellers. So you see what beginners you are. I only wonder why you grew that dirty beard. To ape your magistrate, I suppose!'