Lin seemed preoccupied when I got back to the house we were quartered in, and he called me into the room he had taken over as his private office. Papers lay scattered around in a way I had not seen before. Lin was usually so neat and meticulous. He saw me looking at the mess and apologized.
‘I have been busy this afternoon, and haven’t had time to get things straight. Let me call Po Ku and he can sort my papers out as we speak.’
He disappeared for a moment and when he returned the rangy Po Ku was following him. With some simple instructions from Lin, the youth began collecting the scattered documents. I was surprised Lin trusted him to understand the order in which they needed to be arranged, but he seemed to be satisfied Po Ku was doing as requested. He turned to me, a grim smile on his soft, oval face.
‘After I had finished making notes of our progress so far, I went to the actors’ theatre in the square.’
For a moment my heart sank. Had Lin divined the reason for my clandestine visit there? If he had, it would complicate matters no end. But to my relief he made no mention of my having been to see the troupe myself.
‘I wanted to speak to whoever had rewritten the words for the play we saw. There seemed to be so many veiled hints in the script, I was sure it had been intended that we heard them and investigated. I tried to speak to Tien-jan Hsiu, but he was rehearsing Guan’s play with most of the rest of the acting crew. I did manage to speak with the ticket-seller, but he could only tell me that the manager of the troupe was responsible for the scripts of the older plays. He goes by the stage name of P’ing-Yang Nu — slave from P’ing-Yang — and was playing the part of the executioner in Guan’s play. He too was onstage, therefore. I stood and watched for a while, having been told the man I wanted was the one with tattoos all over his arms and legs. He looked my way a couple of times, but wouldn’t come offstage. Then, when the rehearsal finished, he must have slipped away behind the shen-cheng — the backcloth — because Tien-jan came over to talk to me. And when I looked for Nu he was nowhere to be seen.’
‘A guilty conscience?’
‘Or fearful of going any further than he has done. Letting the words he wanted us to hear be spoken in public but understood only by us was clever. But it suggests he is afraid of being seen to speak directly to us. Never mind, we will find him. And when we do, he will have to tell us what he knows.’
I wasn’t so optimistic.
‘How can you be sure he knows anything? Could it not be merely coincidence, and you are reading too much into the lines you heard?’
Lin’s face hardened in a way I had not seen before. This case and its possible consequences were beginning to tell on him.
‘No. I am sure he knows more. You see, I checked some old posters I saw in the street. They had been partially torn down, or new ones had been pasted over them. But I could read enough of the posters to know that the troupe had been performing in Pianfu right at the time of Old Geng’s death.’ He looked triumphantly at me. ‘It proves they were here when the old man was murdered. Nu could have been seeking a loan — acting troupes are notoriously short of cash and need loans — so, at the very least, he could have seen something. He could have seen who the real murderer was, and not realized it until their return this time round.’
THIRTEEN
Lin and I kept our information about the theatrical troupe to ourselves for the time being. Not that there was much to divulge at the moment. But Gurbesu had returned, and needed to tell us all she had learned from Jianxu. As soon as she came through the door, we knew she had much to tell. Her eyes were bright, and her words flowed out like flood water down the Hwang-Ho river.
‘Jianxu has told me about when she and her mother-in-law went to live with Old Geng. It is a quite unbelievable story, except for one thing. I believe every word of what she said. In fact her whole life story is exceptional. Oh, where to begin.’
I took her arm and made her sit down. Then I gave her a cup of the local wine to calm her.
‘Take a deep draught, then a deep breath, and begin at the beginning. That is what we said we needed to do with this case. We have been dodging around picking up titbits here and there too much. We need the full picture. Start with how Jianxu came to be in the Gao household in the first place.’
Gurbesu looked from me to Lin and then to Pyka, who had come in just before the whirlwind that was Gurbesu had taken over.
‘You won’t believe me.’
Jianxu had obviously been patiently awaiting Gurbesu’s return for a long time. As she walked towards the prison along the long approach road, Gurbesu could see the pale face of the girl set against the darkness inside her cell. It was almost as though she had been standing there since the last time Gurbesu had spoken to her. She was staring through the grille in the cell door, her almond eyes unblinking in the afternoon sun. The bandy-legged guard scurried out from his post and unlocked the cell door without being asked by Gurbesu. The afternoon was tolerably warm, with only a hint in the air of how cold the autumn would soon get. Gurbesu drew the girl out of her cell. The gaoler was nervous, and took a step towards them, but Gurbesu’s stare froze him in his tracks. She took Jianxu’s arm and they sat under the shade of the lone tree opposite the cell door, just as I had done two days previously. Gurbesu called out to the guard to fetch them some water. Grudgingly, he went, and came back with a wooden pail and a ladle. The water in the pail was cool, and both she and Jianxu drank in turn from the ladle in silence. Their thirsts quenched, Gurbesu began her gentle interrogation.
‘How did you come to be living with Madam Gao?’
Jianxu stared off into the distance as though she were looking far away into her own past.
‘My father was a poor scholar, who had not yet taken his exams when his wife — my mother — died. I was seven years old, and of an age where I could be useful to a household. In order to finish his studies, my father offered me as a servant to Madam Gao. In return, she would give my father an amount of money sufficient to pay for his exams.’
Gurbesu stirred, uncomfortable at the implication.
‘In essence he sold you to Madam Gao.’
Jianxu did not flinch from the hard conclusion drawn by her interrogator.
‘It was a mutually convenient arrangement. Before he left, he pleaded with Madam Gao to be kind to me, and told me to be obedient. I think both of us kept our bargain. I served Madam Gao well, and she had no cause for complaint concerning my domestic duties. We did not talk much, other than when she gave me instructions, but then Madam did not seek or want a companion. Time seemed to pass with great speed. It was ten years later that Madam Gao’s son asked me to marry him, and I was pleased to do so. Once again, it was mutually convenient. Sadly, he was a sickly person and our joining was never consummated. He took ill and died soon after we were married.’
Jianxu paused in her narration, and Gurbesu wondered about her apparent calm. How had she felt when her husband had died so soon after the wedding? Had she mourned for him? What feelings had coursed through her veins? She got an answer of sorts when Jianxu continued her story.
‘The Three Duties of a woman are obedience to her father, her husband, and to her son after her husband’s death. Sadly we had no son.’ Once again she paused, but only briefly this time. ‘But one of the Four Virtues says a woman should serve her in-laws. Madam Gao’s own husband had died a long time before, so my duty was to serve Madam Gao. This I did, and would still strive to do, if I were not in this prison.’
‘She sounds too good to be true.’
Gurbesu smiled sweetly, but insincerely, at my banter. I knew the Three Duties, and the Four Virtues would not play well with her. As a man I might have wanted a woman of such an exemplary nature, but had not yet found one. One can but dream. Gurbesu told us what she thought.