Two weeks went by, then another one. That third week was terrible ... I could hardly eat, and those nights ... After the three weeks had passed, I lived in a trance, mechanically counting the days ... On the fifth day he came. Came to see me on my boat, early in the morning. Said he had been detained in the capital by an urgent affair. He had arrived in Canton two days before, strictly incognito, accompanied only by his friend Dr Soo. He had put off calling on me because he had to see some Arab acquaintances, and also because he hadn't been feeling well, and wanted to have a brief rest. But he had become worse, therefore he had come now, ill as he was, hoping that my company would cure him. I was frantic, for I hadn't got the antidote with me, I had hidden it in the house near the temple. I talked him into going there with me at once. He fainted as soon as we were inside. I poured the antidote down his throat, but it was too late. Half an hour later he was dead.'
She bit her lips and stared for a while at the roofs of the houses outside. Chiao Tai looked up at her, dumbfounded. His face had turned deadly pale. She went on slowly:
'There was no one in the house I could turn to, for my patron didn't even keep a maidservant there. I rushed to him and told him what had happened. He only smiled and said he would take care of everything. The bastard knew that I was now completely at his mercy, for I, wretched pariah, had murdered an Imperial Censor. If he denounced me, I'd be quartered alive! I told him that Dr Soo would start to worry if the Censor didn't return to their inn that night. My patron asked whether Dr Soo knew about me and the Censor. When I said no, he said he'd see to it that Soo made no trouble.'
She took a deep breath. Giving Chiao Tai a sidelong glance, she continued:
'If you had taken me to the capital, I would have taken a chance on my patron keeping his mouth shut. He counts for nothing in the capital, and you are a colonel of the guard. And if he had blabbed, you could have hidden me where they couldn't get at me. But now everything has turned out for the best. Your boss announced that the Censor was a traitor, which means that instead of committing a crime, I did the state a great service. I'll tell him that he can keep half of the gold, if he gets me citizenship, and a nice little house in the capital. Get dressed and take me to him!'
Chiao Tai looked up in utter horror at the woman who had just pronounced her own death sentence. Staring at her as she stood there with her back to the window, her magnificent body outlined against the red morning sky, he suddenly saw in his mind's eye, with horrifying clarity, the scene of the scaffold at dawn — this lithe, perfect body mutilated by the executioner's knife, then the limbs torn asunder.... A long shudder shook his powerful frame. He rose slowly. Standing in front of the exultant woman, he groped frantically for some way to save her, some way to...
Suddenly she cried out and fell into his arms, so vehemently that he nearly lost his balance. Clasping her supple waist, he bent his head to kiss her full, red mouth. But then he saw that her large eyes were getting glazed; her mouth twitched, blood stained her chin. At the same time he felt warm drops trickling down his hands, pressed in the small of her back. In utter confusion he felt her shoulders. His fingers closed round a wooden shaft.
He stood there motionless, the dying woman's round bosom against his breast, her warm thighs against his. He felt her heart flutter, as it had once before when he had held her in his arms on the boat. Then it stopped beating.
He laid her down on the couch and drew the javelin from her back. Then he softly closed her eyes, and wiped her face. His mind was frozen. Dazedly he stared at the flat roofs of the Arab houses outside. Where she had stood at the window she had been an easy target for an expert javelin thrower.
Suddenly he realized that he was standing there by the dead body of the only woman he had ever loved, loved with his entire being. He fell on his knees in front of the couch, buried his face in her long, curling locks and burst into strange, soundless sobs.
After a long time he rose. He took her blue cloak and covered her.
'For the two of us, love meant death,' he whispered. 'I knew it, as soon as I had seen you, that first time. I then saw a battlefield, smelled the heady smell of fresh blood, saw its red flow....'
He cast one long look at the still figure, then locked the room and went downstairs. He walked all the way to the palace, through the grey streets where only few people were about at this early hour.
The majordomo told him that Judge Dee was still in his bedroom. Chiao Tai went upstairs and sat down on one of the couches in the anteroom. The judge had heard him. Bare-headed and still wearing his nightrobe, he pulled the door-curtain aside. He had a comb in his hand; he had just been doing his beard and whiskers. Seeing Chiao Tai's haggard face, he quickly stepped up to him and asked, astonished:
'What in heaven's name has happened, Chiao Tai? No, don't get up, man! You look ill!’ He sat down on the other couch and gave his lieutenant a worried look.
Staring straight ahead, Chiao Tai told him the whole story of Zumurrud. When he had finished, he added in a toneless voice, looking the judge full in the face, 'I thought it all out on my way here, sir. She and I were lost, either way. If the assassin hadn't murdered her, I would have killed her myself, then and there. Her life for that of the Censor, a life for a life, she would have understood that. It's in her blood, as it is in mine. Then I would have killed myself. As it is, I am still alive. But as soon as this case has been disposed of, I beg you to release me from my oath to serve you, sir. I want to go and join our northern army, now fighting the Tartars beyond the border.'
There was a long silence. At last Judge Dee spoke quietly:
'I never met her, but I understand. She died a happy woman, happy because she thought her one and only dream would now come true. But she had died already before she was killed, Chiao Tai. For she had only that one dream left, and one needs many dreams to stay alive.' He straightened his robe, then looked up and said pensively, 'I know exactly how you feel, Chiao Tai. Four years ago, in Peichow, when I was solving the nail murders, the same thing happened to me. And I had to make the decision which Zumurrud's murderer took out of your hands. Moreover, she had saved my life and my career.'
'Was she executed, sir?' Chiao Tai asked tensely.
'No. She wanted to spare me that. She committed suicide.' Slowly stroking his long beard, he went on, 'I was going to give up everything. I wanted to retire from a world that suddenly seemed grey and lifeless, dead.' He paused, then he suddenly laid his hand on Chiao Tai's arm. 'No one can give you any help or advice. You must decide yourself what course to follow. But whatever your decision may be, Chiao Tai, it will never change my friendship and my high regard for you.' Rising, he added with a wan smile, 'I must finish my toilet now; I probably look like a scarecrow! And you had better order my four agents at once to go to her boat, apprehend the maid who was her patron's spy, and question the crew. For we must learn the identity of her patron. Then you go back to your inn with a dozen constables, fetch the body, and take the routine measures for tracing the murderer.'