Chiao Tai made no reply. He had been surveying the crowd with a preoccupied face. Suddenly he asked:
'Don't you have a feeling that someone is keeping an eye on us?'
Tao Gan quickly looked over his shoulder.
'No, I don't,' he said. 'But your hunches are often right, I admit. Well, since our judge told us to report at six, we still have an hour or so. Let's do some walking, each on his own. That'll give us a better chance to see whether we are being spied upon. And I'll be able to test my memory of the city's layout at the same time.'
'All right. I'll pass by my inn and change, then cut through the Moslem quarter. If I keep to the north-east, I'll sooner or later come to the large street that leads north, won't I?'
'If you behave and keep out of trouble, that is! Do have a look at the Tower of the Water-clock on the main street, it's a famous sight. The exact time is indicated by floaters in a series of brass water vessels, put one above the other, like a flight of stairs. The water drips slowly from the higher into the lower vessels. Quite an ingenious contrivance!'
'Think I need all those gadgets for knowing the time of day?' Chiao Tai asked with a sniff. 'I go by the sun and by my thirst. And at night and on rainy days I make do with my thirst only. See you later, in the palace!'
II
Chiao Tai turned the corner, crossed the bridge over the moat and entered the city by the Kuei-te Gate.
As he pushed his way through the dense evening crowd, he glanced over his shoulder now and then, but no one seemed to be following him. He passed in front of the high, red-lacquered gate of the Temple of the Five Immortals, entered the first street on his left, and so reached his inn, named after the temple. It was a ramshackle building of two storeys. Over its roof he saw the top of the minaret belonging to the Moslem mosque, rising more than fifteen fathoms up in the air.
Calling out a cheerful good-night to the surly innkeeper, who sat slumped in a bamboo chair in the small lobby, Chiao Tai went straight up to his room on the second floor, at the back. It was hot and stuffy inside, for the shutters of the single window had been closed the whole day. After renting it that morning he had only stayed to put his travelling bundles on the bare plank-bed. With a curse he pushed the shutters wide open. He looked at the minaret, of which he now had a complete view.
'Those foreigners can't even get up a real pagoda,' he muttered with a grin. 'No storeys, no curved roofs, no nothing! Straight as a piece of sugar cane!'
Humming a tune, he changed into a clean shirt, put on his coat of mail again and wrapped his helmet, iron gloves and high military boots in a piece of blue cloth. Then he went downstairs.
Down in the street it was still very hot; the river breeze did not penetrate this far into the city. Chiao Tai was sorry that he could not take off his jacket because of the coat of mail. After a casual glance at the passers-by, he took the alley next to the inn.
The narrow streets were lit by the lampions of the night-stalls, but there were few people about. He saw several Arabs, conspicuous by their white turbans and their quick, long stride. After he had passed the mosque, the streets assumed a foreign aspect. The white-plastered houses had no windows on the ground floor; the only light came from those on the second floor, filtering through screens of intricate latticework. Here and there an arched passage across the street connected the second floors of the houses on either side. Chiao Tai was still in such a cheerful mood after the wine that he forgot to check whether he was being followed.
When he had entered a deserted alley, he suddenly found a bearded Chinese walking by his side, who asked curtly:
'Aren't you a guardsman called Kao or Shao, or something like that, eh?'
Chiao Tai halted. In the uncertain light he scrutinized the stranger's cold face with the long sidewhiskers and greying beard, taking in also his torn brown robe, well-worn cap and mud-covered boots. The fellow looked shabby enough, yet he had the natural poise of a person of consequence, and he had spoken with the unmistakable accent of the capital. He said cautiously:
'My name is Chiao.'
'Ha, of course! Colonel Chiao Tai! Tell me, is your boss, His Excellency Dee, here in Canton too?'
'What if he were?' Chiao Tai asked truculently.
'None of your lip, my man!’ the stranger snapped. 'I have to see him, urgently. Take me to him.'
Chiao Tai frowned. The fellow did not seem to be a crook. And if he were, so much the worse for him! He said:
'It so happens that I am on my way to my boss. So you can come along with me right now.'
The stranger quickly looked over his shoulder at the shadows behind him.
'You walk ahead,' he said curtly; 'I'll follow. It's better that we aren't seen together.'
'As you like,' Chiao Tai said, and walked on. He had to be careful now, for there were many deep holes among the stone flags, and the only light came from an occasional window. There was no one about; the only sound was the heavy tread of the stranger's boots behind him.
After Chiao Tai had turned yet another corner he found himself in a pitch-dark street. He looked up to verify whether he could see the top of the minaret, in order to orientate himself. But the high houses on either side were lurching towards each other; he could see only a narrow strip of starlit sky. He waited till the other had come up behind him, then said over his shoulder:
'Can't see a thing here. We'd better turn back and look for a litter. It's still quite some way along the main street.'
'Ask the people in the house round the corner there,' the stranger said. His voice sounded hoarse.
Chiao Tai peered ahead, and now saw indeed a glimmer in the darkness. 'The old geezer's voice is a bit off, but his eyes are all right!’ he muttered, walking towards the faint light. After he had rounded the corner, he saw that it came from a cheap oil lamp, placed in a niche high up in the forbidding blank wall on his left. A little further on he saw a door, embossed with copper ornaments. Over his head was another cross-passage connecting the second floor of the house with the one opposite. He stepped up to the door. As he knocked hard on the shutter of the peephole, he heard his companion behind him stop. Chiao Tai called out to him:
'There's no answer yet, but I'll rouse the bastards!'
He knocked vigorously for some time, then pressed his ear against the wood. He heard nothing. He gave the door a few kicks, then rapped against the peephole till his knuckles hurt.
'Come on!’ he shouted angrily at his companion. 'We'll kick this blasted door in! There must be someone at home, else that lamp wouldn't be burning.'
There was no answer.
Chiao Tai turned round. He was all alone in the alley.
'Where could that bastard...' he began perplexedly, then broke off. He saw the stranger's cap lying on the stone flags, under the cross-passage. With an oath Chiao Tai put his bundle on the ground, reached up and took the oil lamp from the niche. As he stepped forward for a closer look at the cap, he suddenly felt a soft tap on his shoulder. He swung round. There was nobody. But then he saw a pair of muddy boots dangling close by his head. With another curse he looked up, holding the oil lamp high. His companion was hanging by his neck from the other side of the cross-passage, head at an unnatural angle, arms stiff by his side. A thin cord ran over the sill of the open passage window.
Chiao Tai turned to the door directly under the passage and gave it a violent kick. It swung inside and crashed against the wall. He quickly climbed the flight of narrow, stone steps that went up at a sharp angle, and so reached the dark, low passage crossing the street. Holding the lamp high, he saw a man clad in an Arab gown sprawling in front of the window. He was lying quite still, clasping a short spear with a long, needle-sharp point in his right hand. One look at his bloated face and protruding tongue sufficed to show that he was dead — strangled. One of his bulging eyes had a cast in it.