Robert Gulik - The Chinese Gold Murders

She looked at him with a mischievous glitter in her eyes. He thought he had never seen so beautiful a woman. She went inside and he followed her down the stairs to the main cabin.

The diffuse light of two lamps of colored silk shone on a very low, broad couch of carved ebony, lavishly decorated with inlaid mother-of-pearl, and covered with a thick, closely woven reed mat. Embroidered silk hangings decorated the walls. A thin cloud of a slightly pungent incense curled up lazily from a quaintly-shaped bronze burner on the red-lacquered dressing table.

Yü-soo went over to the dressing table and readjusted the flower behind her ear. Turning round she asked smiling, "Don't you like it here?"

Looking at her fondly, Chiao Tai felt a queer pang of sadness. "I know now," he said hoarsely, "that one should see you always in your own surroundings and in your own native dress. But how strange that in your country women always wear white. With us white is the color of mourning."

She quickly stepped up to him and laid her finger on his lips. "Don't say such things!" she whispered.

Chiao Tai clasped her in his arms and gave her a long kiss. Then he drew her to the couch and sat there, pulling her down by his side.

"When we are back on your boat," he whispered in her ear, "I'll stay the whole night with you!"

He wanted to kiss her again but she pushed his head away and rose. "You are not a very ardent lover, are you?" she said in a low voice.

She untied the elaborate bow below her bosom. Suddenly she moved her shoulders and the robe fell to the floor. She stood naked before him.

Chiao T'ai sprang up. He took her up in his arms and laid her on the couch.

When they had been together before she had been rather passive but now she was as eager as he. He thought he had never loved a woman so much.

Their passion spent, they remained lying next to each other. Chiao Tai noticed that the barge seemed to be slowing down, they must be nearing the quay of the Korean quarter. He heard some commotion on deck. He wanted to sit up and reach for his clothes that lay in a heap on the floor in front of the couch. But Yü-soo put her soft arms round his neck from behind.

"Don't leave me yet!" she whispered.

A loud crash resounded from above, followed by angry shouts and curses. Kim Sang burst into the room, a long knife in his hand. Yü-soo's arms suddenly tightened round Chiao Tai's throat, locking his neck as if in a vice.

"Finish him off quick!" she called out to Kim Sang.

Chiao Tai gripped her arms. Trying to free his throat he succeeded in getting up in a sitting position, but the weight of the girl was dragging him down again. Kim Sang sprang to the couch, his knife poised for the thrust in Chiao Tai's breast. With a supreme effort Chiao Tai turned his torso to shake the girl off. Kim Sang struck just as the girl's body twisted across Chiao Tai's. The knife plunged into Yü-soo's exposed side. Kim Sang pulled the knife out and staggered back, staring incredulously at the blood that began to stain the girl's white skin. Chiao Tai shook his neck free of the girl's limp arms, jumped from the couch and grabbed Kim's hand with the knife. Kim came to life again. He hit a vicious blow in Chiao Tai's face that closed his right eye. But Chiao Tai now had Kim's right in both hands; he twisted it round, aiming the point of the knife at Kim's breast. Kim hit out again with his left, but at the same time Chiao Tai gave the knife a powerful thrust upward. It penetrated deeply into Kim's breast.

He threw him with his back against the wall and turned to Yü-soo. She lay half over the couch, her hand pressed on her side. A steady flow of blood was trickling through her fingers.

She raised her head and looked at Chiao with a queer, fixed stare. Her lips moved.

"I had to do it!" she faltered. "My country needs those arms; we must rise again! Forgive me-" Her mouth twitched. "Long live Korea!" she gasped. A shiver shook her body, then her head fell back.

Chiao Tai heard Ma Joong curse violently on the deck above. I le rushed up, naked as he was. Ma Joong was wrestling desperately with a tall boatman. Chiao Tai locked his arms round the man's head and gave a sharp twist. As the man went limp Chiao Tai didn't loosen his hold. With a quick hip throw he heaved the body overboard.

"I took care of the other fellow," Ma Joong panted. "The third must have jumped into the water." Ma Joong's left arm was bleeding profusely.

"Come down," Chiao Tai growled. "I'll bandage that!"

Kim Sang was sitting on the floor where Chiao Tai had thrown him down, his back leaning against the wall. His handsome face was contorted; his glassy eyes were fixed on the dead girl.

Seeing Kim's lips moving, Chiao Tai bent over him and hissed, "Where are those arms?"

"Arms?" Kim Sang muttered. "That was all a hoax! Just to fool her; she believed it." He groaned, his hands twitched convulsively over the hilt of the knife protruding from his breast. Tears and sweat running down his face, he moaned, "She… she. The swine we are!" He pressed his bloodless lips together.

"If it isn't arms, what are you smuggling?" Chiao Tai asked intently.

Kim Sang opened his mouth. A stream of blood gushed out. Coughing, he brought out, "Gold!"

Then his body sagged. He slumped sideways to the floor.

Ma Joong had been looking curiously from Kim Sang to the naked body of the dead girl. He asked, "She was going to warn you, and he killed her, hey?"

Chiao Tai nodded.

He quickly put on his robe. Then he tenderly put the girl's body straight on the couch, and covered it with her white robe. The color of mourning, he thought. Looking down on her still face he said softly to his friend, "Loyalty… That's the finest thing I know of, Ma Joong!"

"A beautiful sentiment," a voice remarked dryly behind them. Chiao Tai and Ma Joong swung round.

Po Kai was looking from outside through the porthole, his elbows on the sill.

"Holy heaven!" Ma Joong exclaimed. "I had forgotten all about you.

"Unkind!" Po Kai commented. "I used the weapon of the weak, I fled. I let myself down on the narrow gangway that runs round this vessel."

"Come round inside here!" Ma Joong grunted. "You can help us fix my arm."

"You are bleeding like a pig," Chiao Tai said ruefully. He quickly picked up the girl's white sash and started bandaging Ma Joong's arm. "What happened?" he asked.

"Suddenly," Ma Joong replied, "one of those dogs grabbed me from behind. I wanted to duck to throw him over my head, but then the second kicked me in my stomach and drew his knife. I thought T was done for, but then the fellow who held me from behind suddenly let go. I could twist my body aside at the last moment and the knife aimed at my heart landed in my left arm. I put my knee in the fellow's groin, and placed a right under his jaw that made him crash backward through the railing. The man behind me must by that time have thought better of it and jumped overboard, I heard a splash. Then the third one was on me. It was a hefty fellow, and I couldn't use my left arm. You came just in time!"

"That'll stop the bleeding," Chiao Tai said as he knotted the ends of the sash round Ma Joong's neck. "Keep your arm in this sling."

Ma Joong winced as Chiao Tai pulled the bandage tight. Then he asked, "Where's that blasted poet?"

"Let's go up on deck," Chiao Tai said. "He's probably emptying all the wine jugs!"

But when they came up, the deck was deserted. They called Po Kai's name. The only sound that broke the stillness was the splashing of oars from afar through the mist.

With an awful curse Ma Joong ran to the stern. The dinghy was gone.

"The treacherous son of a dog!" he shouted at Chiao Tai. "He was in it too!"

Chiao Tai bit his lips. He hissed, "When we get that lying bastard I'll wring that scraggy neck of his with my own hands." Ma Joong tried to peer through the mist that surrounded the barge.