The Red Pavilion Read online

  She raised her head and turned her blind face to the judge.

  ‘Who is it?’ she asked in her rich, warm voice.

  ‘It is I, the magistrate.’

  The leper’s blue lips contorted in a lopsided sneer. Looking fixedly at his one eye, the judge spoke:

  ‘You are Dr Lee Wei-djing, the Academician’s father. And she is the courtesan Green Jade, reported dead thirty years ago.’

  ‘We are lovers!’ the blind woman said proudly.

  ‘You came to the island,’ Judge Dee continued to the leper, ‘because you had heard that the Queen Flower Autumn Moon had driven your son to his death, and you wanted revenge. You were wrong. Your son killed himself because he had discovered swellings, on his neck, and thought that he had got the disease too. Whether rightly or wrongly, I don’t know; I couldn’t examine the corpse. He lacked your courage, he couldn’t face a leper’s miserable end. But Autumn Moon didn’t know that. In her foolish hankering after fame she stated that he had killed himself because of her. You heard that from her own lips when, hidden in the shrubbery in front of the veranda of the Red Pavilion, you eavesdropped on our conversation.’

  He paused. There was only the laboured breathing of the leper.

  ‘Your son trusted Autumn Moon. He gave her a letter for you wherein he explained his decision. But she forgot all about it, didn’t even open it. I found it, after you had murdered her,’

  He took the letter from his sleeve, and read it aloud.

  ‘I bore a son of you under my heart, dear,’ the woman said tenderly. ‘But after I was cured, I had a miscarriage. Our son would have been handsome, and courageous. Just like you!’

  Judge Dee threw the letter on the couch.

  ‘After you had come to the island you were watching Autumn Moon all the time. When, late that night, you saw her going to the Red Pavilion, you went after her. Standing on the veranda you saw her through the barred window, lying naked on the bed. You called her name. Then you stood yourself next to the window, your back against the wall. “When she came to the window, probably pressing her face close to the iron bars to see better who was calling, you suddenly came forward. You stuck your hands through the bars and grabbed her throat, to throttle her. But your deformed hands could not hold her. On her way to the door to call for help, she had a heart attack and collapsed on the floor. You killed her, Dr Lee.’ . The red, inflamed eyelid fluttered. She bent over the deformed face and whispered:

  ‘Don’t listen to him, dear! Rest, my sweet, you are not well.’

  The judge averted his eyes. Staring at the damp floor of stamped earth, he went on:

  ‘Your son rightly mentioned in his letter your indomitable courage, Dr Lee. You were mortally ill and your wealth had dwindled away. But you still had your son. You would make him a great man, and quickly too. Paradise Island, that treasure house of gold, was situated on the boundary of your land. First you sent your ruffians to rob Feng’s gold transport, but it was too well guarded. Then you thought of a better plan. You told your son that the curio-dealer Wen Yuan hated Feng and wanted to oust him as warden. You ordered your son to establish contact with Wen, and execute with him the plot that would result in Feng’s being dismissed in disgrace. Your son would then get Wen appointed in Feng’s place as warden of the island, and through him you would be able to tap the island’s wealth. Your son’s death brought all that to nought.

  ‘We hadn’t met before, Dr Lee, but you knew my reputation, just as I knew yours, and you were afraid I would find out about you. After you had killed the Queen Flower, you came back to the Red Pavilion. You stood for a while on the veranda watching me through the barred window. Your evil presence only caused me a bad dream. You couldn’t do anything, for I was lying too far from the window, and I had barred the door.’

  He looked up. The leper’s face was a gruesome, leering mask. The putrid odour in the small room had become worse. The judge pulled up his neckcloth over his mouth and nose and spoke through it:

  ‘You tried to leave the island after that, but the boatmen wouldn’t take you. I suppose you searched the forest on the waterside for a hiding place, and there met by accident, after thirty years, your mistress Green Jade. Recognized her by her voice, I presume. She warned you that I was investigating Tao Kwang’s death. What made you cling to a life that held only misery for you, Dr Lee? Were you determined to save your reputation at any cost? Or was it devotion to the woman whom you loved, thirty years ago, and whom you had thought dead? Or an evil desire to come out winner, always? I don’t know how an incurable disease may affect a great mind.’ As there was no reply, Judge Dee resumed: ‘Yesterday afternoon you spied again on me, for the third time. I should have known, I should have recognized the unmistakable odour. You heard me saying to my lieutenant that I was going here. You went to call your hired men and ordered them to lie in ambush among the trees and kill me. You could not know that, after I had gone inside the sitting-room, I had changed my plans. Your men attacked my lieutenant and two of the warden’s men instead. All were killed, but one of them mentioned your name, just before he died.

  ‘After I had read your son’s letter, I suddenly understood. I knew what you had been, Dr Lee. Feng had described you as the dashing young official of thirty years ago. And Green Jade described you again when she spoke to me of a lover with a wild, reckless strain in him, a man who would casually throw away wealth, position, everything-because of the woman he loved.’

  ‘That was you, dear!’ the woman spoke softly. ‘That was you, my handsome, reckless lover!’

  She covered his face with kisses.

  Judge Dee looked away. He said in a tired voice:

  ‘Persons suffering from an incurable disease are beyond the pale of the law, Dr Lee. I only wish to state that you murdered the courtesan Autumn Moon in the Red Pavilion, as you murdered there Tao Kwang, thirty years ago.’

  ‘Thirty years!’ the beautiful voice spoke up.’ After all those years we are together again! Those years never happened, dear, they were a bad dream, a nightmare. It was only yesterday that we met, in the Red Room … red as our passion, our burning, reckless love. Nobody ever knew we met there, you, the handsome, talented young official, loving me, the most beautiful, the most talented of all courtesans, the Queen Flower of Paradise Island! Feng Dai, Tao Kwang, and so many others, they all sought my favour. I encouraged them, feigned not to be able to make up my mind, only to protect our secret, our sweet secret.

  ‘Then came that last evening … when was it? “Wasn’t it last night? Just when you were crushing my trembling body in your strong arms, we suddenly heard someone in the sitting-room. You sprang from the bed, naked as you were you ran out there. I followed you, saw you standing there, the red rays of the setting sun colouring your dear body a fiery red. “When Tao Kwang saw us standing there close together, naked and defiant, he grew white with rage. Pulling his dagger he called me a shameful name. ” Kill him! ” I cried. You sprang on him, wrenched the dagger from his hand and plunged it into his neck. The blood spouted over you, red blood over your red, broad breast. Never, never have I loved you more than then …’

  The ecstatic joy gave the ravaged blind face a strange beauty. The judge bent his head. He heard the vibrant voice resume:

  ‘I said: ” Let’s dress quickly and flee! ” We went back to the Red Room, but then heard someone enter the sitting-room. You went and saw that silly boy. He rushed out again at once, but you said that he might recognize you. It was better to take the body to the Red Room, put the dagger in his hand, lock the door behind us, push the key back inside under the door … then they’d say that Tao had killed himself.

  ‘We parted on the veranda. They were just lighting the lampions, in the small kiosk, over in the park. You said you would go away for a few weeks, wait till the suicide had been registered. Then … you would come back to me.’

  She began to cough. It became steadily worse, soon it was shaking her wasted frame. Foam and blood came on her lips. She wi
ped it off carelessly and went on, her voice suddenly weak and hoarse:

  ‘They asked me whether Tao had loved me. I said yes he had loved me, and it was true. They asked me whether he had died because I would not have him, and I said yes he had died because of me, for again it was true. But then the sickness came. … I got it, my face, my hands … my eyes. I would die, and I wanted to die, die rather than ever let you see me again, as I had become…. There was the fire, other sick women dragged me along, over the bridge, to the forest.

  ‘I didn’t die, I lived. I, who wanted to die! I took the papers of Miss Ling, Gold Jasper as she was called. She had died, in the field drain, by my side. I came back, but you thought I was dead, as I wanted you to think. How glad I was when I heard how great, how famous you had become! It was the only thing that kept me alive. And now, at last, you have come back to me, in my arms!’

  Suddenly the voice fell silent. When Judge Dee looked up he saw her thin, spidery fingers quickly passing over the still head in her lap. The one eye had closed, the rags on the sunken breast did not move any more.

  Pressing the ugly head to her flat bosom she cried out:

  ‘You came back, Heaven be praised! You came back so that you could die in my arms … and I with you.’

  She hugged the dead body, whispering endearing words.

  The judge turned round and went outside. The creaking door fell shut behind him.

  Chapter 20

  WHEN JUDGE DEE had rejoined Ma Joong, his lieutenant asked eagerly:

  ‘You were quite some time. What did she say, sir?’

  The judge wiped the beads of perspiration from his forehead, then swung himself on his horse. He muttered:

  ‘No one was there.’ Taking a deep breath of the fresh morning air, he added: ‘I made a thorough search of her lodging, but found nothing. I had a theory, but it proved to be wrong. Let’s ride back to our hostel.’

  While they were crossing the piece of waste land, Ma Joong suddenly pointed ahead with his riding-whip and exclaimed:

  ‘Look at all that smoke over there, sir! They have begun to burn the altars. The Festival of the Dead is over!’

  The judge stared at the dense columns of black smoke billowing over the rooftops.

  ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘the Gates of the Other World have closed.’ Closed, he thought, on the ghosts of the past. Thirty years the shadows of that one night in the Red Pavilion had dragged on, darkening the lives of the living. And now at last, after thirty long years, those shadows had slunk away to that dank, evil-smelling hovel; now they were cowering there, with a dead man, and a dying woman. Soon they would have gone, gone for ever, never to come back.

  When they had returned to the Hostel of Eternal Bliss, Judge Dee told the manager to prepare the bill. He ordered the groom to look after the horses, then went on with Ma Joong to the Red Pavilion.

  While Ma Joong was packing the saddlebags, the judge sat down and re-read his report on the Academician’s suicide that he had drawn up the night before, then wrote the concluding passage of his report on the demise of Autumn Moon. He gave as his verdict that she had died from a heart attack, after overindulgence in alcohol.

  Afterwards he wrote a brief letter to Feng Dai, stating that he had found that one and the same man had murdered both Tao Kwang and Autumn Moon, but that the criminal had died and that these matters therefore would be best let alone. In conclusion he wrote: ‘I am informed that Dr Lee Wei-djing, his mind deranged by the last phase of leprosy, has been roaming about in this area, and died in the hovel of the former courtesan Miss Ling, who is mortally ill. Should the woman have died also, I order you to have the hovel burned, together with the two corpses, so as to prevent the disease from spreading. Inform the Lee family. The woman has no known relatives.’ Then he signed the letter. Having re-read it he again moistened his writing brush and added a postscript, saying: ‘I also learned that Kia Yu-po has left the island together with a girl he loves. An older and deeper affection shall comfort your daughter, to whom convey my best wishes for her future happiness.’

  He took a new sheet and indited a letter to Tao Pan-te, informing him that his father’s murderer had been identified, but that he had died after a long and painful disease. He added: ‘Thus Heaven has avenged your wrong, and nothing stands in the way of a closer union between the houses of Tao and Feng, sealing the old friendship.’

  He closed the two letters and marked them ‘personal’. Then he rolled up his official reports, together with all the enclosures, and put the bulky roll in his sleeve. Getting up from his chair, he said to Ma Joong:

  ‘We’ll go home via Chin-hwa. There I’ll hand my report to Magistrate Lo.’

  They walked to the hall together, Ma Joong carrying the saddlebags.

  Judge Dee settled the bill with the manager, and handed him the letters to Feng Dai and Tao Pan-te, for immediate delivery.

  Just as they had stepped out into the front courtyard to mount their horses, there was a clanging of gongs in the street outside, and loud shouts of ‘Make way, make way!’

  A dozen perspiring bearers carried a large official palankeen inside. It was followed by a troop of constables, holding high the large red placards inscribed with Magistrate Lo’s full rank and titles. Their headman moved the door curtain aside with a respectful bow, and Magistrate Lo descended, resplendent in his green official robe and winged judge’s cap, and vigorously fanning himself with a small folding fan.

  When he saw Judge Dee standing by his horse he ran up to him with mincing steps, exclaiming excitedly:

  ‘My dear Elder Brother, what a terrible thing! The Queen Flower of Paradise Island dead, and under mysterious circumstances! The whole province’!! be talking about it! Came rushing back here, despite this awful heat. As soon as I heard the shocking news! Wouldn’t dream of saddling you with more extra work, of course!’

  ‘Her death must indeed have been a shock to you,’ the judge remarked dryly.

  Lo gave him a shrewd look. He said airily:

  ‘I am always interested in a beautiful woman, Dee, always! ”Along the dusty road of weary life’s routine, blooms all too rare this full-blown rose, that laves the traveller with its dew-decked sheen, and tee-tums him to sweet repose“—that’s how I put it in a recent poem. I am still groping for a telling verb in the last line. Not bad though, eh? Well, what happened to the poor girl?’

  Judge Dee handed him the roll of documents.

  ‘It’s all here, Lo. I had planned to pass by Chin-hwa to hand you these papers, but you’ll allow me to give them to you here and now. I am eager to get home.’

  ‘By all means!’ Lo closed his fan and stuck it jauntily in his collar behind his head. Then he quickly unrolled the papers. “When he had glanced the first report through he nodded and said:

  ‘I see you confirmed my verdict of the Academician’s suicide. Mere matter of routine. As I told you.’

  He went on with the report on the Queen Flower’s death. After he had verified that his own name was not mentioned in connection with her he nodded approvingly, rolled all the documents up and said with a contented smile:

  ‘Excellent work, Dee! Ably written too. I can send the report on to the Prefect unchanged-practically unchanged, that is. Style seems a bit on the heavy side, if I may say so, Dee. I’ll give it a somewhat lighter touch here and there, make it easier to read. Modern style, that’s what the metropolitan officials like nowadays, you know. I am told you can even put in a bit of humour-very subdued, needless to say. Shan’t fail to mention your valuable assistance, of course.’ Putting the papers in his sleeve, he asked briskly: ‘Well, who caused the Queen Flower’s death? You have locked him up in the warden’s place, I suppose?’

  ‘When you have read the rest of my report,’ Judge Dee replied evenly, ‘you’ll perceive that the Queen Flower died of a heart attack.’

  ‘But everybody is saying that you refused to confirm the coroner’s verdict! The Mystery of the Red Pavilion, they call it. Almighty Heaven, D
ee, you don’t mean to say that I’ll have to continue the investigation?’

  ‘It’s indeed something of a mystery. But my verdict of accidental death is amply supported by proof. You can rest assured that the higher authorities will consider the case closed.’

  Lo sighed with undisguised relief.

  ‘There’s only one thing left to do,’ Judge Dee continued. ‘Among the papers you’ll find a confession of the curio-dealer Wen Yuan. He delivered false testimony in court and tortured a courtesan. He deserves a flogging, but that would probably kill him. I propose that you have him stand in the pillory a day, with a notice stating that he is under a suspended sentence, and that he’ll be flogged as soon as a new complaint is lodged against him.’

  ‘I’ll do that with pleasure! The scoundrel has fine porcelain, but his prices are atrocious. He’ll bring them down a bit now! I presume. Well, I am deeply obliged, Dee. Sorry to see you are leaving already. I may as well stay on a bit here to ah … study the aftermath of the cases. Have you seen yet the new dancer that arrived here yesterday? No? They say she is absolutely wonderful, remarkable skill, and a charming voice too. And a figure …’ With a pensive smile he twirled his moustache, elegantly lifting his little finger. Suddenly he gave the judge a searching look. Raising his eyebrows, he added loftily: ‘I am disappointed, though, that you didn’t get to the bottom of that mystery of the Red Pavilion. Dee. Heavens, man, you have the reputation of being the most clever judge of our whole province! Always thought you solved murders and things in between two cups of tea, so to speak!’

  ‘Reputations are not always founded on fact!’ the judge remarked with a bleak smile.’ I’ll be off now, back to Poo-yang. Do come and see me next time you call there. Goodbye!’

  Postscript

  JUDGE DEE was a historical person; he lived from 630 to 700 A.D., during the Tang dynasty. Besides earning fame as a great detective, he was also a brilliant statesman who, in the second half of his career, played an important role in the internal and foreign policies of the Tang Empire. The adventures related here, however, are entirely fictitious, although many features were suggested to me by original old Chinese sources.