Jade Dragon Mountain (24 page)

Gray turned to him. “Have you come to ask me about the dead man? I am afraid I have nothing I can offer you. I have no idea who might have killed him. I can only hope that no one else is in danger.”

Remembering Tulishen's injunction that he not offend Gray, Li Du spoke carefully. “I do not want to keep you from your work here, but I do have questions for you.”

Gray's expression did not change. He shrugged, agreeable. “Of course I want this matter resolved as quickly as possible. If I can be of any help…”

“What did you and Brother Pieter argue about in the library?”

Gray frowned. “We did not argue.”

“You were overheard.”

“Ah,” said Gray, his expression clearing. “But that was not an argument. It may have appeared so, but in our culture, men may express themselves with vehemence without the loss of face you take so seriously in your country.”

“And what was the subject of this debate?”

Gray directed his gaze upward in thought. “I came upon him after he had taken the liberty of examining the Company's property. You can imagine my distress. He was a stranger to me, and I am charged with the safety of that cargo. He reassured me that he was merely interested in the one piece—the tellurion. You know he was an astronomer?”

“Yes.”

“He overheard a description of it during the inventory, he said, and could not resist. Once I realized that the old man meant no harm, I was patient with him.”

“And that was the extent of your conversation?”

Gray shifted his weight from one foot to the other, and glanced at the progress of the construction. It seemed to satisfy him. “What do you mean, the extent of it? Who talked to you?”

“If you will pardon me, I am asking you.”

Gray looked hard at Li Du, trying to infer what he already knew. “Well,” he said finally, “he made some offensive remarks that did upset me. I had relied on him, as a fellow European, you understand, to support me in my errand to the Emperor. But he revealed to me certain gross misunderstandings of my employer, and indicated that I could not rely on him as I had thought to.”

“He felt that the Company was dangerous.”

“As I said, he was in error. But he was an elderly Jesuit, and I am a gentleman. He had no actual power to harm my mission, and so I was as patient with him as possible. That is all that happened. I assure you. Are you satisfied?”

“On that point, yes, for now. But I would like you to tell me your movements on the night he died.”

Did he imagine the evasiveness of Gray's small eyes as he composed his reply? When Gray spoke, his tone was casual, almost disinterested. “You cannot mean that I am a suspect?”

“If I may be frank—you did leave the courtyard just after Pieter left it.”

“Yes, but I thought you had asked me this already. I had an assignation with one of the hired women. We met in the garden with the fountains—by the main gate. I was nowhere near the guesthouse.”

“That is what you said.” Li Du's posture was apologetic, his shoulders rounded in deference to the other man. But his words were clear and confident. “If you will pardon me, I know that is not the truth.”

Gray's ruddy face flushed slightly, and the flakes of peeling skin stood out white on his reddened forehead and nose. “I am trying to be patient with you. But remember that I am an ambassador. I have certain immunities that must be respected.”

“I understand that, and the magistrate wishes especially that you not be inconvenienced. But I would point out to you that, if you are innocent of the crime, it is in your interest to speed the investigation. You do not wish your audience with the Emperor to be affected by his concern over an unresolved crime.”

Gray considered Li Du's words, but did not reply immediately. Li Du quickly weighed his options, and decided to continue with the direct approach. The tellurion was still in his mind, as were the painted event schedules, and the shadow of the looming emperor's pavilion that fell on him and Gray as they spoke. He had to take a risk and move forward.

“That cut on your hand,” said Li Du. “It is almost healed now, but on the night of the murder it was fresh. Did it come from a shard of the broken teacup?”

“I did not break my cup.”

Their eyes met. “No,” said Li Du. “It was Brother Pieter's teacup that broke. The one that you hid in the rock garden.”

“How dare you—”

Li Du interjected quickly: “I am not accusing you of murder. But I believe that you were in the room when he died, and that it was you who took the cup.”

“I don't know what you are talking about. I was with a woman, and when I left her I returned to the performance. I learned of the death at the same time you did.”

Li Du shook his head. “I noticed that you have a habit of playing with a silver coin. You were doing it throughout the performance.”

Gray scoffed. “How is that relevant?”

“When you came back from the dark gardens, you did not take the coin from your pocket again. Instead, you concealed your hand from view. I think that you did so because it was bleeding from the wound you had just received.”

Gray did not reply immediately. Instead, he focused his attention on filling and lighting a slim wooden pipe that he had drawn out of his pocket. The ritual seemed to have a calming effect on him, and finally he said, in an even tone, “I did not kill him.”

“Then you admit that you took the cup from his room?”

Gray drew a long pull from his pipe and puffed the smoke slowly into the air. He looked very intently at Li Du. “I do not admit anything,” he said. “How do I know that you are not trying to trap me into confessing to a crime I did not commit?”

“That is not my intention.”

Gray made an impatient gesture with the hand holding the pipe. “I am a representative of the most powerful Company in the world. I am alone in an empire the workings of which are unfamiliar to me. I would be very naive if I expected everyone here to be truthful. In these political games, lies are part of the language. Honest people are fodder for the clever ones. Do not ask me to believe your promises, and do not expect me to put myself at unnecessary risk.”

Li Du thought about what Gray had said. Then he lifted his head and addressed Gray in a formal tone. “Then this is what I propose. I will tell you what I think happened. If my conclusions convince you that I am not attempting to put the blame where it is not deserved, then I ask you to help me, and to tell me what you know.”

Gray directed a calculating look at Li Du, then gave a short nod. “I believe that is fair,” he said. “But shall we walk as we speak? The wind is cold here at the crest of the hill, and there is a pleasant path there, out of the noise and dust.” He pointed down the wild slope in back of the emperor's pavilion.

Li Du squared his shoulders and straightened his hat. They began to walk. Li Du took a deep breath and began: “I know that you did not meet a prostitute that night in the mansion.”

“How do you know?”

“That is not relevant. But once I knew that you had lied about where you were, I assumed that your actions must have placed you somewhere close to the scene of the crime. You were seen arguing with Brother Pieter. Whatever he said to you made you follow him that night. Perhaps you only wished to speak with him. Perhaps to threaten him. But you did follow him when he left the performance.”

Gray continued to smoke his pipe. Li Du went on.

“You left so soon after Pieter that I suspect he was not yet dead when you reached him. I suspect that you were with him when he drank the tea, and that, before you knew what was happening, you found yourself standing over a dead body. You panicked. It was obvious to you that the tea had been poisoned. You realized how culpable you would appear to anyone who came upon the scene. Fearing discovery at any moment, you realized that without the cup of tea, Pieter's death did not look like murder. You thought that if you took the cup, with some luck the matter would be viewed as an unfortunate, but unavoidable, tragedy. You did not care in that moment why he had died, or who had killed him. You acted decisively in your own interest.”

Gray's expression was shuttered. The construction was behind them now, and already the path had become overgrown and mossy. A raven squawked from a nearby tree, and there was a flutter of grouse wings in the bramble.

“Perhaps,” said Li Du, “you meant to wash the poisoned tea from the cup and return it to the room, but it was too late. As soon as you were out of the guesthouse you saw Lady Chen approaching. She had heard something and was coming to see what had happened. You hurried to the dark path under the willows and cast about for a place to hide the cup. The ponds were frozen, and you did not want anyone to see or hear you. That is when you came to the rock garden. You lifted one of the rocks and put the cup beneath it. I imagine that when you returned the rock to its place, one of the shards was still visible. You tried to push it out of sight, and you cut your hand on one of the broken edges.”

Li Du stopped and turned to face Gray. “Is that what happened?”

Gray gave Li Du a long, speculative look. Then, resigned, he appeared to relax. He transferred the pipe to his left hand, and raised his right to look at the cut, now a thin, pink line. Then he took the silver coin from his pocket and began to move it across his knuckles as he spoke. “It's good luck, the coin,” he said. “And it did happen as you say. You understand why I did not confess it. I might have been accused and executed without ceremony. As I said before, we foreigners know very little of how your empire operates.”

Gray prodded a quartz pebble with the toe of his boot. “I did not go to threaten the Jesuit. I merely wanted to convince him to help my cause. I wanted him to use his influence to support the Company. The Jesuits may not have as much power as they used to, but I thought that having one on my side would be useful. At the very least I wanted to ask him not to disparage us in the presence of the Emperor.”

“He spoke to me of the Company. He was adamant in his disapproval.”

Gray shrugged. “I can be very persuasive,” he said, then added quickly, “but I meant him no harm. I wasn't going to kill a man just for being unenthusiastic about trade.”

He went on. “And what does a holy brother know of this part of the world to make him so authoritative? The Jesuits are interested in their languages, their astrolabes, and their converts. It was not fair for a person with no grasp of the greater situation to criticize my work.”

“And what happened when you reached his room?”

Gray looked up briefly at the bare tree branches, his breath in the cold air indistinguishable from the pipe smoke. “I caught up with him just as he was going through the door.”

“Did you see whether his door was locked?”

“It was not locked, but that did not seem to surprise him. He greeted me cordially enough, and we went into his room together. He lit the tapers. And that is when he saw the tea. The cup was out on his desk, with dry tea leaves in it already and the steaming kettle beside it.”

“What did Pieter say when he saw it?”

“He was pleased. I don't remember what he said exactly. Something akin to ‘How considerate … the maid has come before me and prepared tea … marvels of good hospitality.' Comments of that nature. Whoever put the tea there must have left just before we arrived.”

Li Du remembered that the pot had still been quite warm when he himself had touched it some time later. Gray continued. “He poured the water into his cup and asked me why I had come.”

“And how was he at that moment?”

“He was distracted. I started to speak, but I could see that he was preoccupied, and not listening to me. I was just beginning to think that I had wasted my time coming to talk to him, when it happened. He gasped for breath and fell to the floor. It was over very quickly. He was dead before I could do anything.”

“But you did not cry for help?”

“There was no time! I tell you he stopped breathing, and then it was over. If I could have done anything to help him, I would have, but he was beyond aid. And I was shocked—I was not in possession of my full faculties.”

“And what did you do then?”

Gray took a deep draw from his pipe and looked at the smoke curling in the air before him. “It was just as you said. I panicked. I've seen men die before, but this was…” His forehead creased and he said, “It is difficult to explain. Something like this happens—a nightmarish moment—and you look for what is familiar to you. But when it happens in a strange country, the world loses its sense. You want to call out, but you do not know what language is in your head. The shapes, the air, they take on the warped proportions of dreams. I tell you—I can almost believe the talk of curses. In that moment, all I could grasp hold of was my mission in coming to China. I knew that I had a duty to protect myself.”

“He was an old man, and you thought that if no one had reason to think of poison, no one would.”

Gray did not flinch. “I know that it was not a clever idea. I didn't think of the danger. I didn't think of the murderer who might have been watching. All I could think of was that at any moment someone might walk in and find me standing there. So I took the cup from where he had set it on the desk, and I ran out of the building. I had only just turned the corner around the wall when I saw Lady Chen approaching. And I was standing there with the damn cup in my hand, my blood roaring in my ears.”

“And why did you not confess all of this once the blame was placed on the Khampa?”

“Would you have confessed? I had no information that would help to find the actual culprit. I convinced myself that some well-meaning maid had filled the cup with tea from that purse you found in his room, and that the bandits really were responsible. Then you returned, with your questions. How would it have looked, my speaking of it so late? And what impression would such an action make on the Emperor?”