Kai Lung's Golden Hours by Ernest Bramah (best detective novels of all time .TXT) 📕

To Lin it seemed as though the city leapt forward to meet them, so narrow was the space of time involved in reaching it.

A few days later Wang Ho was engaged in the congenial occupation of marking a few pieces of brass cash before secreting them where Cheng Lin must inevitably displace them, when the person in question quietly stood before him. Thereupon Wang Ho returned the money to his inner sleeve, ineptly remarking that when the sun rose it was futile to raise a lantern to the sky to guide the stars.

“Rather is it said, ‘From three things cross the road to avoid: a falling tree, your chief and second wives whispering in agreement, and a goat wearing a leopard’s tail,’” replied Lin, thus rebuking Wang Ho, not only for his crafty intention, but also as to the obtuseness of the proverb he had quoted. “Nevertheless, O Wang Ho, I approach you on a matter of weighty consequence.”

“To-morrow approaches,” replied the merchant evasively. “If it concerns the detail of the reduction of your monthly adequacy, my word has become unbending iron.”

“It is written: ‘Cho Sing collected feathers to make a garment for his canary when it began to moult,’” replied Lin acquiescently. “The care of so insignificant a person as myself may safely be left to the Protecting Forces, esteemed. This matter touches your own condition.”

“In that case you cannot be too specific.” Wang Ho lowered himself into a reclining couch, thereby indicating that the subject was not one for hasty dismissal, at the same time motioning to Lin that he should sit upon the floor. “Doubtless you have some remunerative form of enterprise to suggest to me?”

“Can a palsied finger grasp a proffered coin? The matter strikes more deeply at your very existence, honoured chief.”

“Alas!” exclaimed Wang Ho, unable to retain the usual colour of his appearance, “the attention of a devoted servant is somewhat like Tohen-hi Yang’s spiked throne—it torments those whom it supports. However, the word has been spoken—let the sentence be filled in.”

“The full roundness of your illustrious outline is as a display of coloured lights to gladden my commonplace vision,” replied Lin submissively. “Admittedly of late, however, an element of dampness has interfered with the brilliance of the display.”

“Speak clearly and regardless of polite evasion,” commanded Wang Ho. “My internal organs have for some time suspected that hostile influences were at work. For how long have you noticed this, as it may be expressed, falling off?”

“My mind is as refined crystal before your compelling glance,” admitted Lin. “Ever since it has been your custom to wear the funeral robe fashioned by Shen Heng has your noble shadow suffered erosion.”

This answer, converging as it did upon the doubts that had already assailed the merchant’s satisfaction, convinced him of Cheng Lin’s discrimination, while it increased his own suspicion. He had for some little time found that after wearing the robe he invariably suffered pangs that could only be attributed to the influence of malign and obscure Beings. It is true that the occasions of his wearing the robe were elaborate and many-coursed feasts, when he and his guests had partaken lavishly of birds’ nests, sharks’ fins, sea snails and other viands of a rich and glutinous nature. But if he could not both wear the funeral robe and partake unstintingly of well-spiced food, the harmonious relation of things was imperilled; and, as it was since the introduction of the funeral robe into his habit that matters had assumed a more poignant phase, it was clear that the influence of the funeral robe was at the root of the trouble.

“Yet,” protested Wang Ho, “the Mandarin Ling-ni boasts that he has already lengthened the span of his natural life several years by such an expedient, and my friend the high official T’cheng asserts that, while wearing a much less expensive robe than mine, he feels the essence of an increased vitality passing continuously into his being. Why, then, am I marked out for this infliction, Cheng Lin?”

“Revered,” replied Lin, with engaging candour, “the inconveniences of living in a country so densely populated with demons, vampires, spirits, ghouls, dragons, omens, forces and influences, both good and bad, as our own unapproachably favoured Empire is, cannot be evaded from one end of life to the other. How much greater is the difficulty when the prescribed forms for baffling the ill-disposed among the unseen appear to have been wrongly angled by those framing the Rites!”

Wang Ho made a gesture of despair. It conveyed to Lin’s mind the wise reminder of N’sy-hing: “When one is inquiring for a way to escape from an advancing tiger, flowers of speech assume the form of noisome bird-weed.” He therefore continued:

“Hitherto it has been assumed that for a funeral robe to exercise its most beneficial force it should be the work of a maiden of immature years, the assumption being that, having a prolonged period of existence before her, the influence of longevity would pass through her fingers into the garment and in turn fortify the wearer.”

“Assuredly,” agreed Wang Ho anxiously. “Thus was the analogy outlined to me by one skilled in the devices, and the logic of it seems unassailable.”

“Yet,” objected Lin, with sympathetic concern in his voice, “how unfortunate must be the position of a person involved in a robe that has been embroidered by one who, instead of a long life, has been marked out by the Destinies for premature decay and an untimely death! For in that case the influence—”

“Such instances,” interrupted Wang Ho, helping himself profusely to rice-spirit from a jar near at hand, “must providentially be of rare occurrence?”

“Esteemed head,” replied Lin, helping Wang Ho to yet another superfluity of rice-spirit, “there are moments when it behoves each of us to maintain an unflaccid outline. Suspecting the true cause of your declining radiance, I have, at an involved expenditure of seven taels and three hand counts of brash cash, pursued this matter to its ultimate source. The robe in question owes its attainment to one Min, of the obscure house of Hsi, who recently ceased to have an existence while her years yet numbered short of a score. Not only was it the last work upon which she was engaged, but so closely were the two identified that her abrupt Passing Beyond must certainly exercise a corresponding effect upon any subsequent wearer.”

“Alas!” exclaimed Wang Ho, feeling many of the symptoms of contagion already manifesting themselves about his body. “Was the infliction of a painless nature?”

“As to whether it was leprosy, the spotted plague, or acute demoniacal possession, the degraded Shen Heng maintains an unworthy silence. Indeed, at the mention of Hsi Min’s name he wraps his garment about his head and rolls upon the floor—from which the worst may be inferred. They of Min’s house, however, are less capable of guile, and for an adequate consideration, while not denying that Shen Heng has paid them to maintain a stealthy silence, they freely admit that the facts are as they have been stated.”

“In that case, Shen Heng shall certainly return the thousand taels in exchange for this discreditable burial robe,” exclaimed Wang Ho vindictively.

“Venerated personality,” said Lin, with unabated loyalty, “the essential part of the development is to safeguard your own incomparable being against every danger. Shen Heng may be safely left to the avenging demons that are ever lying in wait for the contemptible.”

“The first part of your remark is inspired,” agreed Wang Ho, his incapable mind already beginning to assume a less funereal forecast. “Proceed, regardless of all obstacles.”

“Consider the outcome of publicly compelling Shen Heng to undo the transaction, even if it could be legally achieved! Word of the calamity would pass on heated breath, each succeeding one becoming more heavily embroidered than the robe itself. The yamens and palaces of your distinguished friends would echo with the once honoured name of Wang Ho, now associated with every form of malignant distemper and impending fate. All would hasten to withdraw themselves from the contagion of your overhanging end.”

“Am I, then,” demanded Wang Ho, “to suffer the loss of a thousand taels and retain an inadequate and detestable burial robe that will continue to exercise its malign influence over my being?”

“By no means,” replied Lin confidently. “But be warned by the precept: ‘Do not burn down your house in order to inconvenience even your chief wife’s mother.’ Sooner or later a relation of Shen Heng’s will turn his steps towards your inner office. You can then, without undue effort, impose on him the thousand taels that you have suffered loss from those of his house. In the meantime a device must be sought for exchanging your dangerous but imposing-looking robe for one of proved efficiency.”

“It begins to assume a definite problem in this person’s mind as to whether such a burial robe exists,” declared Wang Ho stubbornly.

“Yet it cannot be denied, when a reliable system is adopted in the fabrication,” protested Lin. “For a score and five years the one to whom this person owes his being has worn such a robe.”

“To what age did your venerated father attain?” inquired the merchant, with courteous interest.

“Fourscore years and three parts of yet another score.”

“And the robe in question eventually accompanied him when he Passed Beyond?”

“Doubtless it will. He is still wearing it,” replied Lin, as one who speaks of casual occurrences.

“Is he, then, at so advanced an age, in the state of an ordinary existence?”

“Assuredly. Fortified by the virtue emanating from the garment referred to, it is his deliberate intention to continue here for yet another score of years at least.”

“But if such robes are of so dubious a nature how can reliance be placed on any one?”

“Esteemed,” replied Lin, “it is a matter that has long been suspected among the observant. Unfortunately, the Ruby Buttons of the past mistakenly formulated that the essence of continuous existence was imparted to a burial robe through the hands of a young maiden—hence so many deplorable experiences. The proper person to be so employed is undoubtedly one of ripe attainment, for only thereby can the claim to possess the vital principle be assured.”

“Was the robe which has so effectively sustained your meritorious father thus constructed?” inquired Wang Ho, inviting Lin to recline himself upon a couch by a gesture as of one who discovers for the first time that an honoured guest has been overlooked.

“It is of ancient make, and thereby in the undiscriminating eye perhaps somewhat threadbare; but to the desert-traveller all wells are sparkling,” replied Lin. “A venerable woman, inspired of certain magic wisdom, which she wove into the texture, to the exclusion of the showier qualities, designed it at the age of threescore years and three short of another score. She was engaged upon its fabrication yet another seven, and finally Passed Upwards at an attainment of three hundred and thirty-three years, three moons, and three days, thus conforming to all the principles of allowed witchcraft.”

“Cheng Lin,” said Wang Ho amiably, pouring out for the one whom he addressed a full measure of rice-spirit, “the duty that an obedient son owes even to a grasping and self-indulgent father has in the past been pressed to a too-conspicuous front, at the expense of the harmonious relation that should exist between a comfortably-positioned servant and a generous and broad-minded master. Now in the matter of these two coffin cloths—”

“My ears are widely opened towards your auspicious words, benevolence,” replied Lin.

“You, Cheng Lin, are still too young to be concerned with the question of Passing Beyond; your imperishable father is, one is compelled to say, already old enough to go. As regards both persons, therefore, the assumed virtue of one burial robe above another should be merely a matter of speculative interest. Now if some arrangement should be suggested, not unprofitable to yourself, by which one robe might be imperceptibly substituted for another—and, after all, one burial robe is very like another—”

“The prospect of deceiving a trustful and venerated sire is so ignoble that scarcely any material gain would be a fitting compensation—were it not for the fact that an impending loss of vision renders the deception somewhat easy to accomplish. Proceed, therefore, munificence, towards a precise statement of your open-handed prodigality.”

Indescribable was the bitterness of Shen Heng’s throat when Cheng Lin unfolded his burden and revealed the Wang Ho thousand-tael burial robe, with an unassuming request for the return of the purchase money, either in gold or honourable paper, as the article was found unsuitable. Shen Heng shook the rafters of the Golden Abacus with indignation, and called upon his domestic demons, the spirits of eleven generations of embroidering ancestors, and the illuminated tablets containing the High Code and Authority of the Distinguished Brotherhood of Coffin Cloth and Burial Robe Makers in protest against so barbarous an innovation.

Bowing repeatedly and modestly expressing himself to the effect that it was incredible that he was not justly struck dead before the sublime spectacle of Shen Heng’s