When the clerk had shown the card to the fat man, he got up at once and came waddling to the counter. His round, haughty face was creased in a friendly smile when he asked:
'And what can we do for you today, sir?'
'I just want some confidential information, Mr Leng. A fellow offered me an emerald ring at only one-third of the value. I suspect it has been stolen, and was wondering whether someone might have tried to pawn it here.'
So speaking he took the ring from his sleeve and laid it on the counter.
Leng's face fell.
'No,' he replied curtly, 'never seen it before.' Then he snapped at the cross-eyed clerk who was peeping over his shoulder: 'None of your business!' To Tao Gan he added:
'Very sorry I can't help you, Mr Kan!' and went back to his desk.
The cross-eyed clerk winked at Tao Gan and pointed with his chin at the door. Tao Gan nodded and went outside. Seeing the red-marble bench in the porch of Wang's pharmacy next door, he sat there to wait.
Through the open window he watched with interest what was going on inside. Two shop assistants were turning pills between wooden disks, another was slicing a thick medicinal root on an iron chopping-board by means of the huge cleaver attached to it by a hinge. Two of their colleagues were sorting out dried centipedes and spiders; Tao Gan knew that these substances, pounded in a mortar together with the exuviae of cicadas and then dissolved in warm wine, made an excellent cough medicine.
Suddenly he heard footsteps. The cross-eyed clerk came up to him and sat down by his side.
'That thick-skulled boss of mine didn't recognize you,' the clerk said with a self-satisfied smirk, 'but I placed you at once! I remember clearly having seen you in the tribunal, sitting at the table of the clerks!'
'Come to the point!' Tao Gan told him crossly.
'The point is that the fat bastard lied, my dear friend! He had seen that ring before. Had it in his hands, at the counter.'
'Well, well. He has forgotten all about it, I suppose.'
'Not on your life! That ring was brought to us two days ago, by a damned good-looking girl. Just as I was going to ask her whether she wanted to pawn it, the boss comes up and pushes me away. He is always after pretty young women, the old goat! Well, I watched them, but I couldn't hear what they were whispering about. Finally the wench picks up the ring again, and off she went.'
'What kind of a woman was she?'
'Not a lady, that I can tell you! Dressed in a patched blue jacket and trousers, like a scullery maid. Holy heaven, if I were rich I wouldn't mind having a maid like that about the house, not a bit! Wasn't she a stunner! Anyway, my boss is a crook, I tell you. He's mixed up in all kinds of shady deals, and he also cheats with his taxes.'
'You don't seem very fond of your boss.'
'You should know how he's sweating us! And he and that snooty son of his keep their eyes on me and my colleagues all the time, fat chance we have to make any money on the side!' The clerk heaved a deep sigh, then resumed, businesslike: 'If the tribunal pays me ten coppers a day, I shall collect evidence on his tax evasion. For the information I gave you just now, twenty-five coppers will do.'
Tao Gan rose and patted the other's shoulder.
'Carry on, my boy!' he told him cheerfully. 'Then you'll also become a big fat bully in due time, working an enormous abacus,' Then he added sternly: 'If I need you I'll send for you. Good-bye!'
The disappointed clerk scurried back to the pawn shop. Tao Gan followed him at a more sedate pace. Inside he rapped on the counter with his bony knuckles and peremptorily beckoned the portly pawnbroker. Showing him his identity document bearing the large red stamp of the tribunal, he told him curtly:
'You'll have to come with me to the tribunal, Mr Leng. His Excellency the magistrate wants to see you. No, there is no need to change. That grey dress of yours is very becoming. Hurry up, I don't have all day!'
They were carried to the tribunal in Leng's luxurious padded palankeen.
Tao Gan told the pawnbroker to wait in the chancery. Leng let himself down heavily on the bench in the anteroom and at once began to fan himself vigorously with a large silk fan. He jumped up when Tao Gan came to fetch. him.
'What is it all about, sir?' he asked worriedly.
Tao Gan gave him a pitying look. He was thoroughly enjoying himself.
'Well,' he said slowly, 'I can't talk about official business, of course. But I'll say this much: I am glad I am not in your shoes, Mr Leng!'
When the sweating pawnbroker was ushered in by Tao Gan into Judge Dee's office, and he saw the judge sitting behind his desk, he fell onto his knees and began to knock his forehead on the floor.
'You may skip the formalities, Mr Leng!' Judge Dee told him coldly. 'Sit down and listen! It is my duty to warn you that if you don't answer my questions truthfully, I shall have to interrogate you in court. Speak up, where were you last night?'
'Merciful Heaven! So it is just as I feared!' the fat man exclaimed. 'It was just that I had had a few drops too much, Excellency! I swear it! When I was closing up, my old friend Chu the goldsmith dropped in and invited me to have a drink in the winehouse on the corner. We had two jugs, sir! At the most! I was still steady on my legs. The old man told you that, I suppose?'
Judge Dee nodded. He didn't have the faintest idea what the excited man was talking about. If Leng had said he was at home the previous night the judge had planned to ask him whether there had been a commotion on the ridge, and then he would have confronted him with his lying about the emerald ring. Now he told him curtly: I want to hear everything again, from your own mouth!'
'Well, after I had taken leave of my friend Chu, Excellency, I told my palankeen bearers to carry me up to my villa on the ridge. When we were rounding the corner of your tribunal here, a band of young rascals, grown-up guttersnipes, began to jeer at me. As a rule I don't pay any attention to that kind of thing, but ... well, as I said, I was... Anyway, I got angry and told my bearers to put the palankeen down and teach the scum a lesson. Then suddenly that old vagabond appears. He kicks against my palankeen and starts calling me a dirty tyrant. Well, I mean a man in my position can't take that: lying down! I step from my palankeen and I give the old scoundrel a push. Just a push, Excellency. He falls down, and remains lying there on his back.'
The pawnbroker produced a large silk handkerchief and rubbed his moist face.
'Did his head bleed?' the judge asked.
'Bleed? Of course not, sir! He fell on to the soft shoulder of the mud road. But I should've had a good look, of course, to see whether he was all right. However, those young hoodlums began to shout again, so I jumped in my palankeen and told the bearers to carry me away. It was only when I was about half-way up the road to the ridge, and when the evening breeze had cooled my head a bit, that I realized that the old tramp might have had a heart attack. So I stepped 'out and told the bearers that I would walk a bit and that they could go on ahead to the villa. Then I walked downhill, back to the place of the quarrel. But ...'
'Why didn't you simply tell your chair-bearers to take you back there?' Judge Dee interrupted.
The pawnbroker looked embarrassed.
'Well, sir, you know what those coolies are nowadays. If that tramp had really fallen ill, I wouldn't want my bearers to know that, you see. Those impudent rascals aren't beyond trying a bit of blackmail ... Anyway, when I came to the street corner here, the old tramp was nowhere to be seen. A hawker told me that the old scoundrel had scrambled up again shortly after I had left. He had said some very bad things about me, then he took the road to the ridge, as chipper as can be!'