'You go ahead and have a look around,' he told Tao Gan; 'I'll follow presently.'
Then he stepped up to the pavilion. The smaller girl was young and not unattractive, but the taller one looked about thirty, and the thick layer of powder and rouge on her face could not conceal the ravage caused by her profession. The old hag quickly pushed the girls aside and with an ingratiating smirk addressed the judge in Cantonese.
'I'd like to talk a bit with your girls,' he cut her unintelligible harangue short. 'Do they understand the northern language?'
'Talk? Nonsense! You either do business, or nothing!' the hag rasped in atrocious northern Chinese. 'Sixty coppers. The house is back of the temple.'
The elder girl, who had been looking at the judge with a listless air, now beckoned him and said eagerly in pure northern dialect:
'Please take me, sir!'
'The scarecrow you can get for thirty!' the hag remarked with a sneer. 'But why not pay sixty and have yourself this nice young chicken?'
He took a handful of coppers from his sleeve and gave them to the old woman.
'I'll take the tall one,' he said curtly. 'But I want to talk a bit with her first. 1 am fastidious.'
'I don't get that word, but for this money you can do with her whatever you like! It's getting so that she costs more money than she brings in!'
The judge motioned the girl to follow him inside the pavilion. They sat down at a small table, and he ordered from the sneering waiter a pot of tea and a platter of dried melon seeds and sweetmeats.
A MEETING AT THE TEMPLE FAIR
'What is all this supposed to lead up to?' she asked suspiciously.
'I just want to talk my own language, for a change. Tell me, how did you come so far south?'
'Not the kind of story that'd interest you,' she said sullenly.
'Let me be the judge of that. Here, have a cup.'
She drank avidly, tasted the sweetmeats, then said gruffly:
'I was foolish, and unlucky to boot. Ten years ago I fell in love with a travelling silk merchant from Kiangsu, who used to eat in my father's noodle stall, and I went off with him. It was all right, for a couple of years. I like travelling about, and he treated me well. But when his business took him here to Canton, I bore him a daughter. Of course he was very angry that it wasn't a boy, and drowned the child. Then he got interested in a local girl and wanted to get rid of me. But it's hard to sell an unskilled northern woman here. The larger flowerboats employ only Cantonese women, or northerners who are really good at singing and dancing. So he sold me for a trifle to the Tanka.'
'Tanka? Who are they?' the judge asked, curious.
She quickly stuffed a whole sweetmeat into her mouth, then mumbled:
'They are also called simply the "waterfolk", quite a different people, you see. The Cantonese despise them. They say they are descended from the savages who lived here more than a thousand years ago, before we Chinese came south. They must stay on their boats moored on the river near the custom-house. It's there that they are born, copulate and die. They are not allowed to dwell on land, or to intermarry with Chinese.
Judge Dee nodded. He now remembered that the Tanka were a class of outcasts, subject to special laws severely restricting their activities.
'I had to work in one of their floating brothels,' she went on, now completely at ease. 'The bastards speak a queer language all of their own, jabbering like monkeys. You should hear them! And their women are always messing about with all kinds of dirty drugs and poisons. Those people vented their resentment against the Chinese on me; for food I got left-overs, for clothing nothing but a dirty loin cloth. The main customers were foreign sailors, for no Chinese brothel would admit them, of course. So you can imagine the kind of life I had there!' She sniffed, and took another sweetmeat.
'The Tanka are afraid of their own women because half of them are witches, but me they treated like the lowest of slaves. At their drunken orgies I had to do disgusting dances for them stark naked, for hours on end, getting my behind smacked with a paddle every time I wanted to rest. And their women shouted insults at me all the time, saying that all Chinese girls are sluts, and that Chinese men prefer Tanka women. Their favourite boast was that eighty years ago a Chinese of mark had married secretly a Tanka woman, and that their son had become a famous warrior who addressed the Emperor as "uncle". Can you beat that? Well, it was a relief when I was sold to a city-brothel, not exactly high-class, but at least Chinese! That's where I've been working these last five years. But I don't complain, mind you! I've had three happy years, and that's more than many a woman can say!'
Judge Dee thought that now that he had gained her confidence, he could broach the subject he had had in mind when accosting her.
'Listen,' he said, 'I am in rather a quandary. I was to have met here a friend of mine from up north, a couple of days ago. But I was detained up river, and arrived only this afternoon. I don't know where he's staying, but it must be nearby, for it was he who suggested this temple as meeting place. If he hasn't left the city, he must be around hereabouts. Since it's your job to pay special attention to the men who pass here, you may have seen him. A tall, good-looking fellow of about thirty, with a kind of haughty air. A small moustache, no beard or whiskers.'
'You are just one day late!' she said. 'He came here last night, you see, at about the same time as now. Walking about as if he was looking for someone.'
'Did you speak to him?'
'You bet I did! I always keep on the look-out for northerners. And he was handsome, just as you said. Dressed rather poorly though, I must say. I stepped up to him, regardless. He could've had me for half the price. But no such luck, he walked on to the temple, without giving me a second look. Snooty bastard! You are quite different; you are nice! I knew that as soon as...'
'Did you see him again today?' the judge interrupted.
'No, I didn't. That's why I told you you are too late. Well, you've still got me! Shall we go to my house now? I could do some of those Tanka dances for you, if you like that kind of thing.'
'Not now. I want to have a look for my friend in the temple, anyway. Tell me your name and address; I may visit you later on. This is my payment in advance.'
Smiling happily, she told him the name of the street where she lived. Judge Dee went to the counter, borrowed a writing-brush from the waiter and jotted down the address on a scrap of paper. Then he paid the bill, took leave of her and walked to the temple.
When he was about to ascend the marble stairs, Tao Gan came down to meet him.
'I had a quick look around, sir,' he said dejectedly. 'I saw no man answering the Censor's description.'
'He came here last night,' the judge told him. 'In disguise, apparently, just as when the agent saw him and Dr Soo. Let's have a look inside together!' As his eye fell on the large palankeen standing by the side of the steps, with half a dozen neatly uniformed bearers squatting by it, he asked, 'Is an important person visiting the temple?'
'It's Mr Liang Foo, sir. A monk told me that he comes here regularly to play chess with the abbot. I met Mr Liang in the corridor and tried to slip by him, but the fellow has sharp eyes. He recognized me at once and asked me whether he could be of any assistance. I told him that I was just sightseeing.'
'I see. Well, we have to be doubly careful, Tao Gan. For the Censor is evidently conducting a secret investigation here, and we mustn't give him away by inquiring too openly about him.' He told him what the prostitute had said. 'We'll just walk about, and try to discover him by ourselves.'
They soon realized, however, that their task was even more difficult than they had imagined. The temple compound counted numerous separate buildings and chapels, connected by a network of narrow corridors and passages. Monks and novices were about everywhere, mixing with the laymen from the country who were gaping at the large gilded statues and the gorgeous paintings on the walls. They saw no one who resembled the Censor.