The Corpse Reader (38 page)

As the old man turned away, Cí thought he saw a tear in his eye.

When Cí returned to the examination room, Gray Fox was nowhere to be seen. Apparently he’d left when a brief examination hadn’t revealed any new information. Cí decided to make the most of Gray Fox’s absence to carry out his own examination. Then he noticed a nervous-looking little man standing quietly by the door. It was the perfumer, Bo said, and his name was Huio.

Cí greeted the man, who was staring at the sentry’s large sword as if he thought he was about to have his head chopped off.

“I already told them, I haven’t done anything! I told the guards when they detained me, but they wouldn’t listen!”

Clearly the perfumer hadn’t been informed why he’d been asked to come. But before Cí could explain, Bo stepped forward and told the man to keep quiet.

“All you need to know is that you have to obey this young man.”

Huio began whimpering and nodding. He got down on the floor and clutched at Cí’s feet, begging not to be killed.

“I’ve got a family, sir…”

Cí helped him gently to his feet. Huio was trembling.

“All I need is your opinion on a perfume. That’s all.”

Huio didn’t seem to believe he could have been detained by Imperial Guards for such a matter, but he began to calm down. That was, until they took him over to the three corpses, which, in their advanced stages of decomposition, immediately caused the man to pass out. Cí managed to bring him around with some smelling salts, and once Huio was calm again, Cí explained his task to him in more detail.

“I believe the perfume each was wearing might have halted the advance of the worms in the flesh.”

Huio approached the corpses again. The stench was really dreadful, and he gagged. Recovering, he asked for three bamboo sticks to be brought; then he rubbed one against the edges of the wounds on each of the three corpses and put the sticks in jars. He rushed out of the room and Cí followed, shutting the door after them.

“I don’t know how you can breathe in there.” Huio gasped. “Awful!”

“How soon can you have answers for me?” asked Cí impatiently.

“Difficult to say. The perfume is obviously mixed up with the smell of the rotting flesh, so I’ll have to separate the scents. Then I’m going to have to compare my findings with thousands of perfumes from around the city. Every perfumer mixes his own scents.
Perfumes are all based on similar essences, but everyone proportions them differently. And of course,” said Huio, smiling, “every perfumer’s proportions are his greatest secret.”

“It doesn’t sound hopeful,” said Cí.

“Something has already stood out to me. Something that might make my job easier. The very fact that there are traces of perfume after several days tells me that the fixatives are of the highest quality. That already excludes quite a few. And, though this might not provide a definite answer, I’d also say, judging by the combination of fragrances”—he took the lid off one of the jars and sniffed it—“that we’re
not
talking about a pure essence here.”

“Which means?”

“We might, just might, be in luck. I’ll get to work. I hope to have an answer within a couple of days.”

The reports from the other examinations of the corpses reminded Cí of one important thing that he’d already noticed himself: The corpse of the older man had a wound beneath his right shoulder blade. It was circular, about the diameter of a coin, and its edges seemed to have been ripped at and torn outward. Cí made a note and continued his investigation.

There were no signs that any of the victims had put up a struggle—either they’d been so completely surprised they didn’t have a chance of defending themselves, or they had been familiar with the killer. It was something to bear in mind. The examination brought only one more detail to light: a strange corrosion between the fingers and on the palms and backs of the older man’s hands. The skin, in spite of the decomposition, was slightly whiter on those parts than anywhere else. There was also a small, reddish tattoo of a flame at the base of the thumb on the right hand. Cí removed the
hand using a saw, packed it in ice, and put it in the conservation chamber before going outside for some air.

Soon Bo returned, accompanied by the artist who would be drawing the portrait of the young corpse. Unlike the perfumer, the artist had had his job explained to him, but he shrieked when he saw the state of the corpse. When he recovered, Cí explained what he wanted drawn, emphasizing that the artist was to make his representation as accurate as possible.

As the artist took out his brushes and began, Cí started reading the information Bo had brought. The first was a report on the eunuch, whose name was Soft Dolphin. He had begun working in the Palace of Concubines at age ten. He’d acted as overseer of the harem and as a chaperone, a musician, and a reader of poems. His keen intelligence had apparently made him a favorite of treasury officials. Eunuchs were considered trustworthy with money because they would never have an heir to pass it on to, and at age thirty, Soft Dolphin had been made aide to the administrator. He’d kept the post until his death at forty-three.

According to the report, a week before Soft Dolphin’s disappearance, he’d requested leave to see his sick father. Because he’d been given permission to take leave, there was no immediate alarm when he disappeared.

As far as the eunuch’s vices or virtues went, the report only mentioned an unbounded passion for antiques, a small collection of which he kept in his private quarters. The report closed with notes on his daily activities and the people with whom he tended to have contact—primarily eunuchs of a similar rank.

Cí then studied the map of the palace grounds. His accommodations had been marked out, and he noticed that even though Kan said he wasn’t allowed there, his room adjoined the Palace of the Concubines. He gathered his tools and glanced at the artist’s half-finished sketch; it was turning into a very accurate likeness,
and he thought it would be a great help. He gave Bo instructions for a small lance he wanted made, then left.

Cí spent the afternoon and evening exploring the areas of the palace where he was allowed to go. Walking the exterior of the imposing, squarish building, he realized just how isolated the palace was: its crenellated walls were at least the height of six men, and four watchtowers, situated according to the cardinal points, overlooked the four ceremonial gates.

Having completed his tour of the perimeter, Cí made his way to the lush gardens, where he let himself be bathed by the dappled light and the intense emerald tones of the damp mosses, the olive-brown of minerals, the muted reds and paler greens of fruit and leaves—a splendid and exuberant palette. Peonies, orchids, and camellias drew his eye toward groves of pine and bamboo. The fragrance of cherries, peaches, and jasmine scrubbed the stink of rotting flesh from Cí’s lungs. He shut his eyes and breathed it all in. He felt life coming into him anew.

He sat down in a pavilion next to a stream. A goldfinch warbled nearby. He took out the map of the palace, which had with it the palace rules related to the number of workers allowed to remain on the premises after their day’s work. The rules established the hour of
shen
as between three and five in the afternoon—this was when all workers were required to have their identity papers checked by an official. The same official made sure they all left via the same gates through which they’d entered. It was no light matter: workers caught on the premises beyond their allotted time would be subject to prison and then death by strangulation.

Cí couldn’t understand why this warning was included with his copy of the map; the pass he’d been given meant none of these
restrictions applied to him. Maybe it was to impress upon him that his stay wasn’t permanent, or perhaps it was a warning to be careful. It occurred to him that, for all the beauty and opulence of the gardens and the architecture, this was really little more than a prison.

He got to his feet and made his way toward the palace’s southern buildings, where the offices for the executive branch and many government councils were situated. Then he made his way to the
siheyuan
, the gigantic porticoed patio that formed the facade of the Interior Court, the Palace of Concubines, and the Imperial Palace itself.

He took in the majesty of both of these palaces, whose rooms—two hundred, according to the map—were hidden by the interior facade. The emperor resided in them along with his wives and concubines, the eunuchs, and a permanent detachment of Imperial Guards.

From his view from the portico, he was also able to locate the East Wing, opposite the Palace of Concubines, which held the warehouses and kitchens, and the West Wing, where the stables and grooming yards were located. He thought the dungeon could be beneath them, but given how labyrinthine the underground sections were, they could really have been anywhere. Finally there was the North Wing, which held the two summer palaces: Morning Freshness and Eternal Freshness.

Much as Cí thought it both enjoyable and productive to familiarize himself with the palace grounds and buildings, he knew it was time to get back to work. He sat on the portico and pulled out the reports to compare them again with his own notes. Soon enough he was gritting his teeth in frustration.

His only certainty was that he was up against a dangerous and cruel killer who was also brilliant in his ability to disguise his crimes. That Cí had identified the first corpse as a eunuch was in
his favor because he presumed the killer wouldn’t imagine that this would be discovered, but there remained considerable obstacles to the entire investigation. The first, as he saw it, was having absolutely no idea of motive. Given the advanced decomposition of the corpses, it seemed particularly important that he establish this. Then there was Kan’s hostility. But these were mere grains of rice next to his worst problem, which was having Gray Fox around.

Cí went to his quarters, deep in reflection.

His room was clean and private, with a low bed, a desk, and a view of the interior courtyard. Cí liked the simplicity. He intended to put his thoughts in order and try to move the case forward, but he quickly realized that he was relying on others—the perfume maker and the portrait artist, in particular—for any real progress. The results of their tasks weren’t guaranteed to lead anywhere. He had to take charge of the investigation and his own fate. He headed back to the examination room.

He took the corpse hand from the conservation chamber. Now that he had some proper light, he noticed that the fingertips were dotted with dozens of what looked like pinpricks, or perhaps marks from a
fu hai shi
, he thought, the bumpy Guangdong pumice stone. He guessed that these were old marks, but he wasn’t ready to proclaim that. Then he turned his attention to the fingernails, under which there were several black fragments akin to splinters. When he removed them he found that, unlike wood, they crumbled under a small amount of pressure; they were actually tiny bits of carbon. Putting the hand back in the chamber, he turned his mind to the strange craters the murderer had left in the three main wounds. Why might he have applied perfume to these? Why that brutal scrabbling around inside the wounds? Could he really have been trying to extract something, or might Ming and the magistrate have been right when they said it was the result of some ritual or an animal attack?