The Monkey and the Tiger

'I don't like interrupting,' Tao Gan said dryly, 'but there's a deal of five silver pieces I wanted to discuss.'

'IT'S A VERY PRIVATE MATTER,' TAO GAN SAID

The giant who had been trying to get hold of his sister now let her go. He turned round and asked panting:

'Five silver pieces, you said?'

'It's a very private matter, just between you and me.'

Seng Kiu gave a sign to Chang to let Tao Gan go. The thin man drew the tall ruffian into the corner and told him in a low voice:

'I don't care a fig about that sister of yours. It's my boss who sent me!'

Seng Kiu went pale under his tan.

'Does the Baker want five silver pieces? Holy Heaven, has he gone mad? How ...?'

'I don't know any baker,' Tao Gan said crossly. 'My boss is a big landowner, a wealthy lecher who pays well for his little amusements. He has got fed up with all those dainty damsels from the Willow Quarter nowadays. Suddenly he wants them buxom and rough-and-ready like. I do the collecting for him. He has heard about your sister, and he has sent me to offer you five silver pieces for having her in the house a couple of days.'

Seng Kiu had been listening with growing astonishment. Now he exclaimed:

'Are you crazy? There isn't a woman in the whole wide world who has got something to sell worth that much!' He thought deeply for a while, creasing his low forehead. Suddenly he burst out: 'That proposal of yours stinks, brother! I want my sister to keep a whole skin. I am planning to set her up in business, you see? So she gets me a regular income.'

Tao Gan shrugged his narrow shoulders.

'All right. There are other vagabond girls on the loose. Give me back my fifty coppers, then I'll say good-bye.'

'Hey there, not so fast!' The giant rubbed his face. 'Five silver pieces! That means living nicely for at least a year, without doing a stroke of work! Well, it doesn't matter much really whether she's handled a bit roughly, after all. She can stand a lot, and it'll cut her down to size, maybe. All right, it's a deal! But me and Chang are going to see her off. I want to know where and with whom she is staying.'

'So that you can blackmail my boss later, eh? Nothing doing!'

'You are lying! You are a buyer for a brothel, you dirty rat!'

'All right, come with me then and see for yourself. But don't blame me if my boss gets angry and has his men beat you up. Pay me twenty coppers, that's my commission.'

After protracted haggling, they agreed on ten coppers. Seng Kiu gave Tao Gan his fifty coppers back, and ten extra. The gaunt man put these in his sleeve with a satisfied smile, for now he had recovered the money he had paid the Chief of the Beggars.

'The boss of this fellow wants to stand us a drink,' Seng Kiu told Chang and his sister. 'Let's go to his place and hear what he has got to say.'

They went up town by the main road, but then Tao Gan took them through a maze of narrow alleys to the back of a tall greystone compound. As he opened the small iron door with a key he took from his sleeve, Seng Kiu remarked, impressed:

'Your boss must be rolling in it! Substantial property!'

'Very substantial,' Tao Gan agreed. 'And this is only the back entrance, mind you. You should see the main gate!' So speaking, he herded them into a long corridor. He carefully relocked the door and said: 'Just wait here a moment while I go to inform my boss!'

He disappeared round the corner.

After a while the girl exclaimed:

'I don't like the smell of this place. Could be a trap!'

Then the headman and six armed guards came tramping round the corner. Chang cursed and groped for his knife.

'Please attack us!' the headman told him with a grin, raising his sword. 'Then we'll get a bonus for cutting you down!'

'Leave it, Chang!' the giant told his friend disgustedly. 'These bastards are professional murderers. They get paid for killing the poor!'

The girl tried to slip past the headman, but he caught her and soon she also was in chains. They were taken to the jail in the adjoining building.

After Tao Gan had run to the guardhouse and told the headman to arrest two vagabonds and their wench who were waiting near the back door, he went straight to the chancery and asked the senior clerk where he could find Judge Dee.

'His Excellency is in his office, Mr. Tao. Since the noon rice he has interrogated a number of people there. Just when he had let them go, young Mr Leng, the son of the pawnbroker, came and asked to see the judge. He hasn't come out yet.'

'What is that youngster doing here? He wasn't on the list of people the judge wanted to interrogate.'

'I think he came to find out why his father had been arrested, Mr Tao. It might interest you to know that, before he went inside, he had been asking the guards at the gate all kinds of questions about the dead body that was found this morning in the hut in the forest. You might tell the judge.'

'Thank you, I will. Those guards are not supposed to hand out information, though!'

The old clerk shrugged his shoulders.

'They all know young Mr Leng, sir. They often go there towards the end of the month to pawn something or other, and young Leng always gives them a square deal. Besides, since the entire personnel has seen the body, it isn't much of a secret any more.'

Tao Gan nodded and walked on to Judge Dee's office.

The judge was sitting behind his desk, now wearing a comfortable robe of thin grey cotton, and with a square black cap on his head. In front of the desk stood a well-built young man of about twenty-five, clad in a neat brown robe and wearing a flat black cap. He had a handsome but rather reserved face.

'Take a seat!' Judge Dee told Tao Gan. 'This is Mr Leng's eldest son. He is worried about his father's arrest. I just explained to him that I suspect his father of having taken part in the murder of an old vagrant, and that I shall hear the case at tonight's session of the court. That's all I can say, Mr Leng. I have to terminate our interview now, for I have urgent matters to discuss with my lieutenant here.'

'My father couldn't possibly have committed a murder last night, sir,' the youngster said quietly.

Judge Dee raised his eyebrows.

'Why?'

'For the simple reason that my father was dead drunk, sir. I myself opened the door when Mr Wang brought him in. My father had passed out, and Mr Wang's son had to carry him inside.'

'All right, Mr Leng. I shall keep this point in mind.'

Young Leng made no move to take his leave. He cleared his throat and resumed, rather diffidently this time:

'I think I have seen the murderers, sir.'

Judge Dee leaned forward in his chair.

'I want a complete statement about that!' he said sharply.

'Well, sir, it is rumoured that the dead body of a tramp was found this morning in a deserted hut in the forest, halfway up the slope. May I ask whether that is correct?' As the judge nodded, he continued: 'Last night a bright moon was in the sky and there was a cool evening breeze, so I thought I would take a little walk. I took the footpath behind our house that leads down into the forest. After having passed the second bend, I saw two people some distance ahead of me. I couldn't see them very well, but one seemed very tall, and he was carrying a heavy load on his shoulders. The other was small, and rather slender. Since all kind of riff-raff often frequents the forest at night, I decided to call off my walk, and went back home. When I heard the rumour about the dead tramp, it occurred to me that the burden the tall person was carrying might well have been the dead body.'

Tao Gan tried to catch Judge Dee's eye, for Leng's description fitted exactly Seng Kiu and his sister. But the judge was looking intently at his visitor. Suddenly he said: