“Maybe he is some sort of scholar,” the younger one said. “That was columns of learned sort of writing.”
“What about it?”
“Nothing, only maybe we could take him to some official, if that’s what he wants…”
“What’s the odds where we take him? He’ll get to jail in the end. Scum like him…”
“Yes, but after all…”
“After all, what?”
“Well, he paid.”
“Ho! So why not jail, jail for the plucked crow?”
“There’s nothing more in it for us that way. There might be something to pick up from some official for bringing him in… it looks well too…and if they don’t want him then we can take him to the jail…”
“What makes you so fond of officials?”
They took him to Magistrate Wu-tsung, and after an interval of waiting the complaint against him was recorded, the soldiers’ statements sworn to, and T’ien Chu had his first chance to defend himself.
He plunged into the story urgently, reliving it as he told it. How he entered the city by the East Gate, and saw an inn on the right side of the road, and then… It was the barest outline, with much glossed over or left out, but it was the truth, and as he told it he was seized with anguish, desire, despair… He went stammering on and Magistrate Wu-tsung listened without interrupting him.
It was hard to tell from his expression what he was thinking. He seemed to be a grave man, of the age of T’ien Chu’s father, and he looked as though he found it natural to be severe. But still he listened. And when T’ien Chu ground to an end with: “So you see, Sir, I did not go to sleep where I was found. I did not intend any scandal or disturbance. I don’t know what happened. It’s a mystery. I need your help, Sir, to discover the truth. If you will come with me to the Inn, or send some servant you trust…” Magistrate Wu-tsung did not immediately answer. He leaned back and closed his eyes. When he opened them, after a moment of unbearable suspense for T’ien Chu, he did not look at him directly. He looked around the room.
“Let us proceed in an orderly fashion,” he said thoughtfully, beckoning to his clerk. “You will go to the Governor and inquire with my heartfelt compliments whether a tutor for his princely sons is expected from Canton, and if the answer is yes, what the name of such a tutor should be.”
“You may depart,” he added to the soldiers, staring uneasily. “You have done your duty. The delinquent will remain in my custody until we have finished with his case.”
They bowed and hurried away, glad to escape before the answer came and while they still had the gold.
He smiled at T’ien Chu, gray-faced and exhausted on his bench.
“While we wait for the Governor’s word,” he told him kindly, “we will share tea and rice. You must be hungry, after such a day and such a night as you describe…whether or not they occurred.”
III
THE SUN WAS STILL FAR FROM SETTING when the Governor’s answer came, confirming the expected arrival of a tutor named T’ien Chu, requesting further details of the young man’s present situation in the house of his old and honored friend, and asking, mildly, but with legitimate curiosity, when the teaching of his sons would begin.
T’ien Chu begged Magistrate Wu-tsung to proceed with the investigation which should clear him of the charges against him and set him free to take up his duties as the Governor desired. He pleaded that they might set out for the Inn at once. Everything, he insisted, would be explained to everyone’s satisfaction, as soon as they could get there and question the Lady of the House. Then, he was certain, it would be clearly shown that he was the innocent victim of some strange but natural circumstance.
He was not at all certain of this, or of anything, except that he could not endure to sit for another moment, politely answering questions about his home, his education, and, to prove his scholarship, discuss pedantic niceties of the more obscure classics with this tedious old man. He was trying to conceal the anxiety racking him, his desperate need to see the Chance Met Lady, to ask forgiveness, to set things straight, above all to find out what the catastrophe was. Wild thoughts went chasing through his head. He even imagined the sudden return of the Governor himself to the sleeping pavilion, but if that were so, he would hardly have sent a mild message of inquiry and endorsement to Magistrate Wu-tsung about the young man caught in his Flower’s bed…unless the Flower’s servants had managed to dump the young man out in time…
It might be that, but he did not believe it. There had been no hesitation in her manner, no suggested need for concealment. She moved proudly free. But he must find out.
He hoped that the old man’s eyes were not too shrewd, that he saw in his restless prisoner only a young man eager to assume new office, not this burned-up fool of a poet, hopelessly in love.
They set off at last, the magistrate in his litter, drawn by two white oxen, with T’ien Chu walking beside it and an escort of armed servants clearing the way before them, toward the East Gate.
Long before they came within sight of the distant city walls, T’ien Chu was scanning the left-hand side of the road for the first sight of the Inn.
He did not find it as soon as he expected. He was still searching when suddenly they reached the gate itself. He looked up, startled.
“Was the Inn outside the gate?” Magistrate Wu-tsung asked.
“No, no. It was well inside, a li or half a li at least.”
“You have missed it. Turn back. Search again.”
They returned from the gate toward the city and were almost at the magistrate’s house before T’ien Chu would admit that he was lost.
“I must have come through another gate.”
“There is none, unless you cross the city to the West Gate. But you came from the east and you did not cross the city?”
“No, not last night. Not until this morning, with the soldiers, as far as your house…but then…but then it must be there! Let us go back…”
“Very well.”
The Inn was not to be found. When they reached the East Gate for the third time, Magistrate Wu-tsung said:
“T’ien Chu, there is one thing you should know. There has never been an inn or a teahouse in the city of Cheng-tu near either of the gates.”
“But I tell you…”
“It is because you told me, insistently, that such an inn existed, that I came with you to find it. Where is it?”
“I don’t know.”
“Was it perhaps a private villa?”
“I don’t know. Perhaps. It isn’t here.”
“You were drunk. Did you dream or invent the story?”
“I was drunk on the wine I drank there. I had no other wine. I did not invent the story. I did not dream.”
“Would you recognize the place where you were found?”
“I don’t know. Perhaps.”
“Is it over there?” He pointed to a gateway marked by a small stone arch. “Is it this place?” He climbed out of his litter and took T’ien Chu by the arm. “Come here. There is something I want you to see. Read the inscription over the gate.”
“P’i-pa Gateway, to the Villa Pi-chi-Fang.” He turned inquiringly toward Wu-tsung. Then he saw something else and cried out in surprise: