Jade Dragon Mountain (19 page)

Li Du said nothing. Hamza's shoulders relaxed and he said, “You seek the truth. And so I am helping you.”

“Thank you.”

Hamza searched the stew delicately with his chopsticks and drew out a soft piece of turnip soaked in oil and broth, steaming hot. He eyed it watchfully, waiting for it to cool, and said, “But I hope you have not forgotten to include me in your list of suspects. The storyteller who spins dark tales, who associates with bandit caravans—”

“—who will not reveal where he is from,” Li Du finished.

Hamza's eyes widened in innocent surprise. “But I have told you. My family is from Turkey, originally.”

“Ah, not from Mughal lands, or from Egypt, as you said before?”

“You must have misheard. It is necessary for you to listen more carefully, if you are to recognize when people are lying to you.”

Li Du kept his gaze lowered as he used his chopsticks to coax the remaining grains of rice into a clump at the bottom of his bowl. “If you insist that you are a suspect,” he said, “then tell me what reason you would have had to kill Brother Pieter?”

The question seemed to please Hamza. He smiled. “Perhaps I am such an ambitious conjurer that I could not resist the tale—it winked at me from its thin world. It wanted a body and blood. It wanted to live longer than one night, not to dissolve into the smoke of extinguished lanterns. The characters were already here: the merchant, the wise man, the courtesan, the magistrate, the emperor…”

“The exile?”

“All that was needed was a corpse to lie among them.”

Li Du, who never wasted food, was still pushing his last bite of rice from one side of his bowl to the other. He said quietly: “I do not believe your confession, and I will not play your game. A moment ago you told me why you want Pieter's killer brought to justice. Were you sincere?”

He looked very seriously at Hamza, who, after a moment, bowed his head. “You see why you are the one who must conduct this investigation,” he said. “Truth and I make uneasy companions. We bicker—she tells me that I do not understand her. I respond that she does not understand herself. And so we continue from one city to the next. She does not always like my stories. And I sometimes stray from her side, and she—” He stopped in the middle of his sentence, and Li Du glimpsed the tired young traveler whom he had met on the mountain, by the fire with his friends. It was enough to reassure him.

There was a short silence between them. Then Hamza said, “What will you do first?”

Li Du had just asked himself the same question. “I do not yet know how the poison was administered,” he said. “The purse may have been put in Pieter's room, or given to him, at almost any time. He may have consumed tea from it, or he may have ingested the poison in another way. The fact that the teacup was taken suggests that the poison was in that cup, and therefore cannot have been removed until after Pieter had drunk from it. Lady Chen says she arrived at Pieter's room minutes after he died. She told us that she came directly to the courtyard to tell the magistrate. The magistrate was at Pieter's room minutes later, and I followed him there.”

“So…” Hamza spoke slowly. “The cup was either taken before Lady Chen arrived, or in the time it took her to bring the doctor and the magistrate to the scene.”

“Or,” Li Du said, “it was taken by Lady Chen. You were still on the stage when I left the courtyard, which means that it cannot have been you who took the cup.”

“That is so.” Hamza gesticulated silently to himself as he played out the scene in his mind. Then he frowned. “The murderer removed the teacup because the cup contained the poison.”

Li Du leaned forward. “That is the obvious explanation. But consider—why would the murderer take the cup, but leave the purse in the room? If the murderer wanted the death to appear natural, he would not have planted a purse full of poisoned tea among Pieter's possessions. Or, the reverse: If the murderer intended to frame the Khampa, then the murderer would not have taken the teacup. By removing the cup, the murderer left a clue to his presence in the mansion that night.”

“Or her presence.”

Li Du nodded. “Or her presence. The two actions contradict each other.”

Hamza tapped his chopsticks idly on the soot-blackened side of the copper pot while he thought. “You said that you found the teacup under a rock?”

Li Du nodded again. “Lady Chen described to me an unlit path leading away from the guesthouse toward the library and the courtyard where you were performing. I followed it, picturing the murderer on that night, clutching the teacup and searching for a way to dispose of it quickly without drawing attention.”

“I would have thrown it into one of those deep ponds. It would have sunk into the mud and lotus stalks and never been found.”

“The murderer may have wished to do so, but could not. It was a very cold day—there were icicles on the trees. The surface of the water was frozen, so the porcelain would likely have rested on top of it. After that, the rock garden is the obvious alternative.”

Hamza looked impressed, but then his expression changed to perplexity. “I do not understand the contradiction of the purse and the cup,” he said.

“Nor do I—it does not yet make sense. For now, I think we should ask ourselves who might have benefited from Brother Pieter's death. There were many people in the mansion that night, but only several of us had any connection to him, or knew who he was.”

“I cannot think of anyone who benefited from his death.”

“There are many reasons to commit murder: to exact revenge, to silence a secret, or, if the killer is insane, then there would not be any rational reason.”

“But who hated Brother Pieter? What dangerous knowledge did he have?”

Li Du raised his eyebrows and said mildly, “I do not know yet. We cannot simply state answers to those questions—we must search for them. When you were performing that night, did you see anything strange in the audience? You were the only one with a view of their faces.”

“Alas—I see my audience, but not in that way. I am guided by their expressions. I know when they are aroused and desire more description of breasts, and women tied to trees. I know when their mood is for romance, and I give them stars and gowns made of moonbeams. I know when the children are becoming tired, and need more of sea monsters and flying carpets—” He recalled himself to the moment. “But I remember nothing else.”

Li Du nodded his understanding. “Then let us consider the possibilities. The merchant—Nicholas Gray. He and Brother Pieter argued. We know that from Mu Gao. We do not know the content of the argument, but I would guess, from what Pieter mentioned to me about his distrust of the Company, that it was about Gray's employer. I will question Gray—and make use of the fact that he does not know that the two people who heard his confrontation with Pieter could not comprehend his specific words. Also, Gray left the courtyard during the performance and, if we can trust Lady Chen's information, he lied about where he went.”

Hamza made a noncommittal sound and Li Du went on: “Then there is the Lady Chen. She is a powerful woman who does not permit herself to act without thought. But when I showed her the jewel that I had found at Pieter's tomb, she held back a strong reaction. I glimpsed it before she shut it away.”

“What emotion?”

Li Du tapped his fingers on the table, frustrated. “I could not identify it. But I am sure she has not told me everything she knows.”

“Perhaps she is keeping a secret for the magistrate. She is first consort—he must confide in her.”

“Yes—I have not forgotten my cousin.” Li Du lowered his voice to a whisper. “Pieter's death appears to have caused him only anxiety and inconvenience. But his adamant refusal to investigate may have had a darker motive.”

Li Du set down his chopsticks and thought for a moment. Then he said, “We know also that Pieter came to this province thirty years ago. You did not mention that to me. Did he say anything to you about his time here during your travels?”

“I apologize for my forgetfulness,” said Hamza, earnestly. “He did speak of it a little. He had a powerful memory. The horsemen were aghast when he pointed to landslides that had not been there when he first traversed those paths. It seemed to me that he thought of it often—but usually walked alone in the hallways of memory.”

Li Du considered. “The city has also changed,” he said. “Magistrate Tulishen and his household all came long after Pieter had settled in India. Many local people have died, or moved away from Dayan. But we must not ignore the possibility that someone held a grudge against Pieter all that time. Perhaps Mu Gao knows something more than what he said. I will return tomorrow to try to determine whether the jewelvine did indeed come from the library. If it did, he certainly had access to it.”

Hamza hummed thoughtfully, then said, “And what of the efficient secretary, Jia Huan? He is very sure of himself.”

“He had the opportunity to go to Pieter's room that night, and he has no love for foreigners in China. But he is an intelligent, ambitious official in the employ of the magistrate. His dislike of the foreigners is intellectual—it is difficult to imagine him murdering one.”

“I agree with you.”

“There is the younger Jesuit—Brother Martin.”

Hamza waved his hand in the direction of the labyrinthine interior of the inn. “The nervous scholar hardly ever leaves his room. He would be mysterious if he were not such a—what is your saying? A frog in a well. He obviously has no idea at all of what he is doing.”

“I will speak to him tomorrow.” Li Du told Hamza about the letter he had found among the manuscript pages.

“It is suspicious, but he is one who does not seem capable of murder,” said Hamza. “He handles weeds and bugs as a midwife handles babes. I would keep my attention on Sir Gray. He reminds me of a jewel-encrusted crab.”

Li Du looked around them. The common room was still crowded with guests in colorful silks hunched like beetles around their tables, talking and gesturing and drinking and occasionally craning their necks for a view of the table where Hamza and Li Du spoke quietly together.

Hoh slipped toward them through the crowd carrying a tray with two cups of wine. His confidence in his own importance shone from his red cheeks and bright eyes. When he reached them, he leaned down close to the table and spoke in a low voice as he served the wine. Li Du saw guests watching out of the corners of their eyes.

Hoh's hands shook slightly with excitement. “So,” he said, “what progress have you made?”

Li Du assured him patiently that they had no answers to make public yet, complimented the stew, and thanked the innkeeper for providing him a room. Hoh nodded enthusiastically, as if Li Du were asking him for his opinion and he was giving it. Then he piled their empty dishes onto his tray. He took his time, arranging and rearranging the bowls and plates. With a knowing smile, he turned and maneuvered deftly back in the direction of the kitchen.

Li Du raised his bowl to drink, but as he did so he felt a crisp, thin corner of paper stuck to the bottom of it. He put his cup down and slipped the paper under his sleeve. While Hamza watched curiously, he read it, holding it low and out of sight. Written in a neat, feminine hand were words:
I have information. Meet me in the chess garden.

*   *   *

The chess garden at the inn was a secluded courtyard some distance from the dining hall. In it were five low stone tables surrounded by stone benches. Overhead, lanterns dangled from rope strung from one side of the courtyard to the other. There was a lit brazier beside the central table. The garden appeared to be empty, so they sat by the fire to wait.

They had only just sat down when a woman appeared from one corner of the garden and walked quickly over to them. She looked around her with the light movements of a bird. When she reached them she said, breathlessly, “My name is Bao. The innkeeper is my uncle.”

Li Du remembered the name. “Please sit by the fire,” he said. “You are a maid at the mansion?”

Bao nodded and smiled, a thin, conspiratorial little smile as she sat down. She had obviously taken pains with her appearance. Her face was coated with bluish-white powder. Her lips and cheeks were rouged, her eyebrows painted, and her hair thickly oiled. Applied to her small, sharp features, the heavy makeup gave her face a hard, kiln-fired delicacy.

“And there is something you wish to tell us?” asked Li Du.

Her voice trembled, but he saw in her eyes that the attention delighted her. “I have been so frightened waiting here in the dark. I thought the murderer might appear at any moment.”

“You do not need to be afraid here,” Li Du said. “We are the only ones listening.”

Bao's small face was suddenly stern. “My mistress taught me never to assume that you know who is listening.” Bao glanced around her again, swallowed, and licked her lips. “I know a secret about the magistrate and my mistress, Lady Chen. My friend Yue was sent to the capital with the magistrate's son after he visited last year, and she is back now. She told me that the magistrate's son told her that one of the magistrates in the capital has died. His name was Liu, and he was mentor to Magistrate Tulishen when the magistrate—when my master—was a student. Yue says that the Emperor is considering Magistrate Tulishen for the open position. It would be a great promotion, and he wants it very badly.”

“And Lady Chen?”

Bao leaned forward with a fierce expression. She looked around the courtyard again, before her words tumbled out. “Lady Chen,” she whispered, “is needles in cotton. Once a maid tried to seduce the magistrate, and Lady Chen tormented her so that she swallowed her own jewelry to kill herself. And another maid—she disappeared—Lady Chen made her run into a stone wall so that she bashed out her brains.”