‘After we talked with the friar last night, I fell to thinking about what you had said.’
‘What about?’
‘The Devil being the only one who could have killed Wenbo, as no human agency could have gained entry to the cell. I kept wondering if someone could have done it from outside, but couldn’t see how. Now you tell me that Sun escaped because the gaoler was drunk, the whole business seems a lot easier to explain. Doors left open and keys discarded. Madam Gao may be an old lady, but she is a very determined one, and Wenbo lived in fear of her. Do we know where she is now?’
‘I would assume she is still at the Geng household. That’s where I would look.’
‘Do you want me to go and see if she is there?’
‘No.’ I stopped Gurbesu from getting up with a restraining hand on her arm. ‘I can do that later. Anyway, you look tired, you should rest.’
She sighed, and fell back into her chair.
‘I am tired. I stayed awake thinking about the case and waiting for you to come to bed. Where were you, anyway? And when did you get to bed? I must have fallen asleep before you returned.’
I waved a hand desultorily in the air.
‘Ohhh, I spoke to Alberoni for a long time about my family and Venice. We talked until the early hours. You get some rest and I will deal with the case. I have a feeling it will all resolve itself today.’
She closed her eyes and I tiptoed away.
When I returned to our temporary quarters, Lin was there too. Seeing me walk in the courtyard, he hurried over.
‘Li’s men are scouring the countryside for Sun. Let us hope they will turn him up before long.’
‘Indeed.’
‘But there is something more important I want to talk to you about.’
‘And what is that?’
‘I have worked out what has been bothering me for almost a week now. It’s about the day of Old Geng’s murder. I had it fixed in my mind when we interrogated Madam Gao in the kitchen that day. Then we got sidetracked by the sudden appearance of the beggar.’
I remembered the conversation. It had been my obsession with the beggar that had overridden a clue Lin had winkled out, and then made him forget it. I felt guilty about it.
‘And what have you uncovered?’
‘I have been going over the sequence of events as we now know it. Jianxu was cooking a broth for Madam Gao in the kitchen. The old lady herself was in the eastern range of rooms feeling unwell. Old Geng was closeted in the western range trying to make his accounts add up, and we presume his son, Wenbo, was also close by. But Doctor Sun had been summoned by an anonymous letter that threatened to expose him for attacking the old lady. We can assume that it was sent by Wenbo, because when Sun arrived dressed as a beggar, he was met by the boy. He gave or sold him the aconite, and when Nu saw them together, Wenbo pretended to kick the beggar out. Do you agree with me so far?’
I think I knew where Lin was going with this, because the same inconsistency had come back to me. But I did not want to spoil his triumph. I merely nodded.
‘Go on.’
‘Then we come to the difficult part. At some point, Jianxu left the kitchen. We know that because Wenbo admitted as much. At that point, anyone could have laced the broth with poison. Wenbo, Madam Gao, or Sun in the guise of a beggar, could all have done it. I exclude Old Geng because he ended up eating the broth, which he would not have done if he had poisoned it intending to kill Madam Gao. Whatever his motive might have been for that.’
I could hold back no longer and worked out where this led Lin to.
‘So you think either Madam Gao was the target, which means Sun or Wenbo put the poison in the broth in order to kill her. Madam Gao is excluded here as she would not have poisoned her own soup. Or one of the three — Gao, Sun or Wenbo — poisoned the broth and arranged for it to be fed to Geng. Madam Gao is not excluded by that possibility, of course.’
‘But there is a stumbling block.’ Lin had seen it, just as I had at last. ‘How did the soup get taken to Old Geng instead of Madam Gao?’
I pointed out what Jianxu had told Gurbesu.
‘Jianxu said Old Geng took it from her. An act of greed that had fatal consequences.’
Lin would not leave it there, however. He was like a dog shaking a rat until it was dead.
‘But the boy said his father did not leave his office. He was quite sure of that. So how could Geng have taken the soup? Now, what if Jianxu was lying? To protect Madam Gao, as she had done when she confessed in order to save the old lady from being tortured? If she thought Madam Gao had poisoned the soup, and then told her to feed it to Geng, her sense of duty might have been enough to cause her to lie to protect her.’
I had another theory, but agreed Lin’s could be right. Before I could say anything about my own ideas however, Lin turned and walked to the door.
‘There is only one way to check the truth or otherwise of all this. Where is Jianxu now?’
I confessed I didn’t know.
‘The last time I saw her was when the friar came back last night. We were all so engrossed in his story, I am afraid we must have left Jianxu out a little. I saw her look in on us and then retire. I presumed she went back to her room. I will go and ask Gurbesu.’
When I found Gurbesu, and asked her about the girl, she went to the small room at the back of the house that she had selected for Jianxu. Its location meant she could keep an eye on her, like a big sister. But Jianxu wasn’t there — she had gone.
TWENTY-SEVEN
Once we had searched the rest of the house to be sure Jianxu was not elsewhere, Lin began to get concerned.
‘What if she has gone back to Madam Gao? If what I suspect is true, and the old lady is at the heart of all this, Jianxu’s life may be in danger.’
I tried to calm him down.
‘Don’t worry so much, Chu-Tsai. I think I can prevent that from happening. You can leave it to me.’
He didn’t look convinced, but I insisted he stayed at the house.
‘You too, Gurbesu.’
She was about to protest, but I put up both my hands, palms out, to stop her.
‘I can deal with this. You should both be here if Jianxu returns.’
Gurbesu looked at me with those dark, penetrating eyes of hers.
‘This is like your scheme to incriminate the prefect in an illegal scam, isn’t it? I thought you were doing it on the side to make money for yourself at first. But it was all about sucking Li into something that you could use against him later. You’ve known for some time who the killer is, and you’ve set another scheme up to trap her.’
I gazed modestly at the ground, though I was in fact very pleased with myself. But I knew it was hard to hide things from Gurbesu.
‘Well, I wouldn’t say I’ve known for some time, but you are right, I do intend to catch her.’
I left them both uncertain and worried and crossed the courtyard, easing loose the dagger I had stuffed in my belt when I had got up that morning. I needed some reassurance, in case my plans went wrong. Jianxu’s disappearance had accelerated the situation, and I had to hurry. The conclusion of this vexed case was in sight, but the threads were unravelling faster than I might have wished.
I strode through the back alleys of Pianfu in my desire to avoid the bustle of horses and sedan chairs on the main highways. The delicate twanging of tuning forks signalled the presence of travelling barbers ready to serve their customers. As I passed one side street, I heard the clatter of copper bowls and knew that a water seller was close by. I found that noise and the cries of street vendors a comforting and familiar sound after well nigh five years in Cathay. Was I settling down here? Would I stay, and live my life out amongst the Chinee and Mongols? I liked my life, but Venice and Caterina Dolfin always came back to haunt me. And the boy who was my son. It was strange, but thinking of him brought me back to Madam Gao, Jianxu and the task in hand. I suppose I was reminded because the girl had lost her father, and lived her life under the watchful and heartless eye of Madam Gao. My son had no father to bring him up, either. Would it affect him as it seemed to have done Jianxu? I hoped not.