The Corpse Reader (52 page)

“You must excuse her,” said Feng as Blue Iris went off alone. “Women act oddly sometimes. But anyway, you’ll have plenty of time to familiarize yourselves now!”

Cí found it impossible to swallow his mouthful and spit it into a bowl before getting to his feet.

“Apologies,” he said. “I’m not feeling my best either.” And with that, he went to his room.

Cí’s thoughts were clouded—he felt awful about what he’d done, and Feng was being so generous by offering a place in his home. Feng didn’t deserve this deceit. Could Cí just own up? No, because of the harm it would obviously cause Blue Iris. The worst part was that the damage had been done, and nothing could change it. Still, he needed to do something.

Cí left his room, determined to speak to Feng—he wouldn’t go so far as to reveal what had happened between him and Blue Iris, but he would tell him absolutely everything else. He found Feng drinking tea in his library, a spacious, comfortable, high-windowed room. There were books everywhere, and the way they sat in neat piles seemed to mirror Feng’s relaxed attitude. A light breeze was entering, carrying the smell of jasmine. Feng smiled when he saw Cí and invited him to sit.

“Feeling better? Would you like some tea?”

Cí accepted the tea Feng offered. He took a sip and then blurted out, “Kan employed me to spy on Blue Iris.”

“On my wife?” Feng almost dropped his teacup.

Cí assured Feng that when he accepted the job, he had no idea who Blue Iris was. Then, when he found out, he tried to get out of the job, but Kan had blackmailed him.

“How?” asked Feng.

“By detaining Ming,” said Cí eventually.

Feng was half dumbfounded and half indignant. His lips quivered.

“That man!” he roared, getting to his feet. “If he hadn’t killed himself, I swear I’d rip him to pieces myself!”

Cí bit his lip, then looked Feng in the eye.

“Kan didn’t kill himself.”

“Eh? There are doubts? What about the suicide note?”

“Yes, I know. Even Bo said the handwriting was indisputably Kan’s.”

“Well?” said Feng. “So what are you saying?”

Cí said he might want to sit down for this. It was time for the truth. Then the emperor would have to be told.

He recounted the details of his examination of Kan’s corpse, beginning with the rope around the councilor’s neck.

“Plaited hemp. Slim but strong. The same as they use to hang up pigs.”

“Very fitting,” muttered Feng.

“Yes, but the thing is, I spoke to Kan the previous afternoon, and nothing that was in his demeanor fits the profile of a potential suicide.”

“People change their minds. Maybe his guilt overcame him later in the day. He fell apart.”

“And then went out before dawn to find a rope like that? If he’d really been overcome by anguish, he’d have used the first thing that came to hand. There were curtains, dressing gown ties, silk sheets—all kinds of things he could have knotted and used if he’d really been suddenly overcome. But no, in a moment of pure desperation, he goes out searching for this quite unusual plaited hemp rope…”

“Or sends someone to get it for him. It’s hardly grounds for suspicion, particularly in the context of a full confession.”

“Nowhere in the note did he actually say he was going to kill himself.”

Feng cocked his head.

“Go on.”

“It says he’s guilty of the murders,” continued Cí. “But that’s all.”

“I don’t know. I’m not sure it would be a good idea to take something this flimsy to the emperor.”

“There’s more. His clothes, for a start. Beautifully folded and placed neatly on the table.”

“Again, that might not mean anything. You know as well as I do that people often take their clothes off before hanging themselves. And, if you’re saying you think it proves other people were in the room, I’m sure they were—at some point. After all, we’re not talking about a commoner here, but an Imperial Councilor. Such a man would never deign to fold his own clothes.”

Cí felt suddenly stupid but was heartened that at least it was his old teacher correcting him. And he hadn’t finished yet.

“Forgive me if I seem arrogant,” he said, “but what about the dresser?”

“What dresser?”

“Well, it
seems
Kan stood on a dresser before hanging himself. But it was so heavy. I tried moving it and couldn’t! It would have needed at least two people, maybe even three, to shift it.”

Feng frowned.

“It really weighed that much?”

“More than Kan. Why would you bother moving something as heavy as that when there are plenty of chairs?”

“I couldn’t say. Kan was a large man; maybe he thought he would break a chair standing on it.”

“A man who’s about to kill himself is worried about the furniture?” Cí paused. “Anyway, there’s more. The rope, OK, it was new. Never used. And yet, a stretch of it showed chafing. Two cubits, between the knot and the end. It just so happens, that’s
exactly
the distance I measured between Kan’s heels and the floor!”

“Sorry, you’ve lost me now.”

“OK. If he really had hanged himself, he would have tied the rope to the beam, put his head through the loop, and then jumped from the dresser. But then the rope would not have had this chafing.” Cí stood to try and present the scene as he saw it. “In my view, Kan was lying down, unconscious, before someone hanged him. In all likelihood, he’d been drugged. Two or three people lifted him up onto the dresser before introducing his head into the loop, then threw the end of the rope over the beam and pulled on the rope to lift Kan into the air. Kan’s weight as he was lifted was what caused the chafing; that’s why it’s exactly the same length as the distance I measured between his feet and the ground. That’s the distance over which his weight would have exerted pressure on the rope running over the beam.”

Feng squinted.

“And what makes you think he was drugged first?” he asked quietly.

“An almost unarguable detail. The trachea wasn’t fractured. Unthinkable in the case of a knot being situated beneath the Adam’s apple and then supporting a very large weight thrown from such a height.”

“Kan might have slipped rather than jumped.”

“Might have. But if we enter into the scene as if it were a crime, there’s no way Kan wouldn’t have resisted, had he been conscious. No scratch marks, no bruising, no sign of any kind of a fight anywhere on his body. We might think about the possibility of a fatal poisoning. But his heart was still beating when he was strung up. How do I know? The skin at his throat reacted as only living skin does. The tongue was jammed hard against the teeth. The lips were blackish. He must have been drugged.”

“Or they forced him to do it.”

“I just can’t see it. Whatever he was threatened with, when that rope was around his neck and he was hanging from a beam, his body took over. Instinctively, he tried to get free.”

“His hands could have been tied.”

“No marks to suggest it. Speaking of marks, I still haven’t mentioned the most conclusive one.” He glanced at the bookshelves and took down a dusty volume. Taking a cord from his shirtsleeve, he laid it along the length of the spine with the ends hanging free. “Watch,” he said. He took both ends at once and stretched the cord abruptly, and then lifted the cord up for Feng to see. “See how the mark left in the dust by the cord is clearly defined? Now watch this.” He repeated the action on another part of the broad spine, but this time shuffling it, making movements to simulate struggling. “See the difference?” The marks were wider and more diffuse. “When I climbed up to check the mark left by the rope on top of the beam, it was exactly like the first one. Clean, with no sign of any kind of agitation.”

“This is all very surprising!” said Feng. “But why haven’t you already told the emperor, since you’ve clearly already thought it through?”

“I wasn’t totally sure,” hedged Cí. “I wanted your opinion.”

“The way you’ve related it, I can’t see any doubts—well, maybe the note.”

“On the contrary, it fits perfectly. Think about it! Kan lets two men into his quarters, men he knows and trusts. But once they’re in, they threaten him and force him to admit guilt for the murders. Kan, fearing for his life, writes the note. There’s no mention of his own death in the note because the men don’t want him to know they’re going to kill him. Once the confession is written, they offer him a drink to calm his nerves, a drink that’s been laced with poison. This way they also avoid any noise from a struggle. Once he’s passed out, they take his clothes off, drag the dresser over, and tie him up with the fine hemp rope—I’m thinking they brought such a fine one so it would be easier to conceal coming into the palace.
They lift him onto the chest and then hoist him up, technically still alive at this point.”

Feng’s jaw dropped. “Cí, this is exceptional work. We must communicate this to the emperor straightaway!”

But Cí wasn’t so enthusiastic. He pointed out that it might bring attention back to Blue Iris.

“Remember what happened with the bloody sickle and the flies?” Cí found his voice turn tremulous at the memory. “I helped find the guilty party, yes, but I’ll never forget that I lost a brother in the bargain.”

“By the gods, Cí! That’s in the past. Your brother condemned himself when he decided to kill a man. You only did what you had to, and anyway, I was the one who found the blood on the sickle; you’re hardly solely responsible. As far as my wife goes, don’t worry. I know the emperor, and I know how his mind works.” Feng stood. “Oh, I forgot. I saw that new judge you were worried about in the palace this morning. Gray Fox, isn’t it?”

Cí’s heart fluttered.

“Forget about him,” said Feng. “It’s late now, but tomorrow we’ll go to the emperor first thing, tell him about your discoveries and clarify your situation, too. I don’t know what Gray Fox found out, but if he thinks he might use it against you, I’ll see that he doesn’t.”

Cí thanked his old master. But he wasn’t sure he should go with him to see the emperor. “Please don’t be offended, but I imagine you’ll also be talking about Blue Iris. That’s private. I don’t really think I should be there.”

Feng admitted Cí had a point. But that didn’t mean he was going to let him reject the offer of a room at the Water Lily Pavilion.

“There’s no way I’m letting you go back to the academy,” he said, adamant. “You’ll stay with us here until your name is totally cleared.”

Cí couldn’t see any way of saying no.

Cí, Feng, and Blue Iris ate a light supper together, sharing an equally light conversation. Cí found it difficult to keep calm. Hard as he tried to control them, his hands kept bumping into Blue Iris’s, and Feng’s every smile felt like torture. As Cí chewed halfheartedly on the food, his mind turned again to the question of Kan’s murder. Who might have done it? The
nüshi
sprang immediately to mind, and he couldn’t help wondering if Feng would defend her so resolutely if he knew about her infidelity.

Before bed, Cí leafed through the
Ingmingji
, a manuscript on judicial process that Ming had written and which he’d borrowed from Ming’s library. It contained descriptions of some of the most intractable cases in recent legal history. He was interested but soon found he couldn’t keep his eyes open. He put the book away and immediately fell asleep, but not into restful dreams. Blue Iris was the only thing he saw.

And he saw her first thing in the morning, too. She came into his room without knocking. She placed a set of clothes at the foot of the bed and stood silently, waiting for something. Cí got out of bed. He was about to ask what she was doing, but she spoke first.

“You’re going to need clean clothes, aren’t you? If you’re going to see the emperor.”

Cí found himself so full of desire that he didn’t even trust himself to speak. But she wasn’t going away.

“What are you up to?” he asked.

“I’ll wait for you in the dining room.”

When he got downstairs, there was already food laid out: small, piping-hot rice cakes; cabbage salad; steamed vegetable buns. Cí was surprised that Feng wasn’t there, but Blue Iris said he’d already gone to the palace. Cí nodded and sipped his tea. The light strained
his puffy eyes. He glanced at Blue Iris. He had to get away from there.