The Apothecary Diaries - Volume 14 - Chapter 8

Chapter 8: The Vanished Thief (Part Two)

Maomao went up to the second floor. The rooms on that level were smaller than the ones on the third floor. It would be fair to say that room size was directly correlated with status in the brothel.

The most cramped chambers in the Verdigris House were just big enough to hold a bed and a place to drink tea. The lack of space meant there wasn’t much room for personal effects; and anyway, most of the women didn’t have money to blow on clothing, so they often shared with other courtesans.

The area below Joka’s room was relatively spacious—it was where the rooms of the best-selling women were located. Still, each room was probably only a third the size of the one allotted to Joka—which was to say, there were three rooms below hers.

“What do you mean, you want to look in my room?” asked a courtesan who had been practicing the erhu. She narrowed her eyes at Maomao. This was someone who had entered the brothel after Maomao had gone to serve in the rear palace. She was Maomao’s age, and didn’t appear to think very highly of her. Maomao regarded the Verdigris House as an old haunt, but for someone who didn’t know her, she probably just looked like a stranger who came and went frequently for reasons unknown and despite not being a courtesan herself.

“The thief escaped from the window of our sister Joka’s room. So I wanted to get a look from the room directly below hers.”

“If he jumped down, then you should check the courtyard.”

“I did.”

This woman was beautiful, as befitted a top earner, and she had a haughty attitude to match. Maomao, however, had grown up in the brothel herself, and then lived in the rear palace on top of that. She wasn’t about to be intimidated by a snippy reception.

“I have the madam’s permission. Get out of my way and stop wasting my time.” As she spoke, Maomao glanced at the madam downstairs.

The other woman was evidently cowed by that, because she quickly backed down. “All right, all right. Just go in and look, then.”

“Gee, thanks.”

Maomao looked around the room. There was a bed, a table, and a chair, along with a desk and a chest for clothing. There was a mild, reasonably pleasant smell of perfume. Between that and the girl’s proficiency with the erhu, Maomao guessed that she must have come from a well-to-do family.

People love fallen aristocrats and widows from good houses, she thought.

The highest-quality brothels valued intelligence and maturity in their women. Besides, there was a certain twisted kind of customer who was particularly attracted to ladies who had fallen from high places. Other things being equal, a girl from a good background would fetch a higher price than a country bumpkin—not least because the brothel would be spared the expense of educating her.

She’d have been better off if she had been sold into the rear palace.

A maid in the rear palace had more possible futures open to her than even the most sought-after prostitute.

Maomao opened the window. Directly above was Joka’s room. She leaned out and stretched out her hand.

I can’t make it, but a nimble man? Maybe.

She took a quick glance around the rest of the room.

“Well?” the courtesan asked.

“I’m all set here. I’ll take a look at the next room.”

“I’m asking what you think!”

“I don’t think much of anything. Oh, but I do have a question. What were you doing between last night and this morning?” Maomao thought it would be worth asking.

“What was I doing? Do I have to give you my whole life story?”

“I’m trying to understand where you were and what you were up to at the time the thief snuck into Joka’s room. Surely you at least heard a noise or something?”

“I was with a customer. I had two yesterday.”

It was hardly unusual for a courtesan to entertain more than one man in a night.

“And this morning?” Maomao asked.

“I was in the big room where the apprentices sleep,” the woman said slowly.

“Why were you there?”

“Why this, why that! The customers in the rooms to either side of me stayed long. How the hell was I supposed to sleep?”

Fair point.

The rooms were separated, but the walls were not especially thick. Trying to sleep with moaning coming from either side couldn’t have been easy for this young woman—one of the pitfalls of being raised well.

“Okay. All right, thanks,” Maomao said, and then she left the well-bred courtesan’s room behind.

After the room in the center, she knocked on the door of the room to the left.

“Yes?”

She was answered by Zulin’s older sister, the young woman who had become a courtesan here by Maomao’s intercession. She didn’t give Maomao the glaring that the first woman had; perhaps she felt she owed her some courtesy.

She was just a scrawny bird before, Maomao thought. Now she’d put on some meat and was even more ample than Maomao. No wonder she was selling so well.

“Let me see your room,” Maomao said.

“Just like that? How about a word of explanation?”

Like the other woman, Zulin’s Sister was reluctant to let Maomao in, but just like the other woman, when Maomao mentioned the old madam she reluctantly complied.

This room, too, smelled of perfume. Maomao sniffed the air, and as she was doing so, she inspected the chamber carefully.

“What have you been doing since last night?” she asked.

“Must I tell you?”

Her diction and usage were better; the madam must have worked on her speech. In contrast to the previous courtesan, however, the decor of this young lady’s room was all over the place. There were a few spots that clearly hadn’t been cleaned; clothes stuck out of their chest, and there were stains on the floor. She might look more mature than before, but personality-wise it seemed she still had some growing to do.

“You heard about the thief, I’m sure,” Maomao said. “And these rooms are right underneath Joka’s, so...” She proceeded to give her the same explanation she had given the other courtesan.

Zulin’s Sister reluctantly began to talk. “I took five customers last night. The last was in the early morning and he didn’t get much time, so he stayed long.”

“Five? That’s quite a few.” Maomao eyed the young woman. She was young yet, and her skin was smooth. Her eyes, though, were a bit bloodshot. Being a courtesan required considerable stamina—the more so the more customers one took.

“Unlike some of the others, I can’t play the erhu, or Go for that matter. I have to make up the difference by sheer numbers.”

“You can get away with that now, while you’re young, but it’s going to take its toll soon,” Maomao said brusquely. She felt she was giving the girl some advice for her own good, but it had the opposite effect.

“What exactly do you propose I do, then? Learn to read and write at my age? And cut into my precious sleeping hours? Impossible. Besides, if I don’t keep boosting my sales, Zulin and I will both be chased out. What, do you think I should make Zulin join me in this trade to earn a few more coins?”

Zulin’s Sister was incensed with Maomao. There was a reason she was so focused on making sales: her little sister, Zulin. She’d given up on their birth father and come knocking on the door of this brothel, but she couldn’t bring herself to give up on her sister.

“Our sister Pairin makes her money with her body,” the young courtesan went on. “Some days she takes a lot more customers than I do. Why don’t you go tell her to be careful?”

“Yeah, okay,” Maomao said, and didn’t pursue the matter. But she thought, That’s because Pairin is special.

Her combination of looks, endurance, and personal disposition made it seem like she had been born to be a courtesan. To begin with, there was a fundamental gulf in the skills possessed by her and this young woman. A little girl whose useless father had brought her up—or not, as the case may be—and who was desperately trying to protect her little sister simply had nothing. Except, that was, the spark of ambition in her eyes.

In any case, Maomao was in no position to lecture; she wasn’t a courtesan and should have kept her opinions to herself.

“All right. I take it that you didn’t see the thief enter or leave Joka’s room this morning, then?”

“I’m afraid not. I’m terribly sorry, but if you’re finished here, could I ask you to leave? Thanks to all the commotion, I haven’t slept a wink yet today.”

“Sure.”

Zulin’s Sister gave a tired yawn and flopped into her bed. She’d changed the sheets, but hadn’t taken the time to straighten out the wrinkles. There would be many more customers tonight, Maomao guessed.

I just hope she doesn’t wind up with anyone with any sick tastes, Maomao thought, and moved on to the next room.

Finally, Maomao visited the courtesan in the room to the right. She was an old face Maomao knew personally.

“What is it?” she asked, her vacant expression suggesting she’d been asleep.

She was two years older than Maomao and had been at the Verdigris House for more than a decade. She couldn’t boast the sales numbers of the Three Princesses, but she had a reputation as a skilled conversationalist who treated customers politely, so she had many visitors of the cultured persuasion. She was also very good at using conversation in lieu of a move to bedroom activities, so she did well looking after her health. She was that rarest of things: a courtesan who maintained a steady stream of customers.

“There was a thief in our sister Joka’s room,” Maomao said. “He escaped out the window, so I wanted to see the rooms directly below hers.”

Without so much as an I understand, the woman gestured Maomao inside. Perhaps it was all the talking she did with her customers that made her so taciturn when she was off the clock. Maomao was sometimes surprised to discover how the women could be like different people when they were entertaining customers.

“Thanks. Pardon me,” she said and looked around the room. It seemed rather unadorned at first glance, but what decorations there were suggested a woman of taste. It seemed to be how this lady sorted the wheat from the chaff among her visitors: Customers who lacked her quality would deride the room as too plain and leave. Only those who could appreciate the true value of things need stay.

The room was the same size as the other two Maomao had visited. There was a bed, a table, and a chair, along with a desk. There was also furniture the woman appeared to have purchased herself. On a small decorative table sat a vase sized for a single flower; it contained a bellflower, whose star-shaped bloom was in full blossom. The vase was the color of soil and, again, looked rather unimpressive at first glance, but it had been given to her by a customer who was distinguished by his elegance. It was small enough to fit in the palm of one’s hand, but evidently it was worth as much as several horses.

Maomao opened the window and studied the bars across it, as well as the walls immediately around it, as she had in the other rooms. “Did you happen to hear any noise outside your window this morning when the thief escaped?” she asked.

“Customers gone. Breakfast,” the woman said, apparently meaning that her customers had gone home, so she had been eating.

“So you didn’t see or hear anything?” Maomao pressed.

“Right.”

“Thanks,” she said, and left the reticent courtesan’s room.

“Ugh,” Maomao sighed as she headed back down to the first floor and made for the small office where the madam was. “Grams,” she called.

“You find the thief?”

“I think I’ve got an inkling who it is. Let me see the register.”

“Hrm. Fine, all right.” The madam handed Maomao a sheaf of rather low-quality paper.

Maomao opened to the final page of the register, which showed which courtesans had entertained which guests and when. “Is Ukyou around?” she asked, referring to a manservant who had been at the Verdigris House for a long time.

“You called?” said the brothel’s chief manservant, as if on cue.

“Would you be able to track this customer?” Maomao asked, indicating one of the names on the sheet. “There’s a good chance it’s a false name, though.”

“Hmm... Well, I can try. I’d better, or the old lady will chew me out!”

“I won’t chew you out. I’ll just cut your salary,” the madam said, tapping some ash out of her pipe.

“You’re too cruel!” Ukyou said, but left the building.

The madam looked at the name Maomao had pointed to, and which courtesan had been entertaining him. “I think I’ll get ready to administer some discipline,” she said.

“Don’t be too harsh.”

“I won’t leave any lasting injuries. Can’t go damaging the merchandise; you know that.”

From her robe the madam produced the key to the discipline room and then went up to the second floor. Maomao followed her.

A shiver passed among the watching courtesans.

Why hadn’t they been able to catch the thief?

Simple. To put it plainly, he’d had someone on the inside.

“What do you want now?” asked Zulin’s Sister, who was in her room waiting for customers and clearly in a bad mood. When she saw the madam behind Maomao, however, she quickly straightened up. Behind the madam a crowd of courtesans began to gather, drawn by the commotion. Gawkers, all.

Maomao didn’t ask permission this time but walked briskly into the room.

“Wh-What do you think you’re doing?” the young woman said.

Maomao inspected the window, where she found a reddish-black spot on the frame. A similar red stain was visible on the floor.

“This is blood, isn’t it?” she said.

“Yes; what about it? It’s from when I got hurt one time.”

“The thief rifled through Joka’s room looking for something. While he was at it, he stepped on this and hurt himself.” Maomao held up the broken hair stick. There was a dark-crimson discoloration on the broken end—congealed blood. “The thief waited until Joka was in the bath, then climbed up and entered through the window. He couldn’t climb very well in his shoes, so I presume he went up barefoot. As he was searching, though, he was discovered by Pairin, who had heard a noise in the next room. That’s why he fled through the window.”

“And this involves me how? A girl’s window frame can get dirty without her doing anything at all, you know.” Zulin’s Sister now openly regarded Maomao as an enemy; her tone was turning aggressive.

“You let the thief into your room as one of your customers—and then cooperated with him. Am I right?”

“I’ll thank you not to accuse me of whatever comes into your head. What could I have to gain from doing something like that? Do you think I seem like a thief, madam?”

“I’m not taking anybody’s side here. Anyone who damages my establishment will pay for it—that’s all.”

This was what made the old woman so frightening. As the one who had introduced Zulin’s Sister to the house, Maomao didn’t like to think about what would happen if it turned out she had done something. However, there was a matter she had to settle.

“I gather you’ve been selling very well recently. Any chance you’ve got your eye on that third-floor room that opened up when Meimei was bought out?”

One way to raise your own status was to simply lower that of those around you. Plenty of courtesans tried tactics like that, pulling the rug out from under the other women. The better your room in the brothel, the higher the quality of customer you attracted, and the higher the price you could command. Maomao understood that it was a life-and-death struggle to gain those positions.

Especially for this young lady, whose only way to make more is to use her body.

Just because she started bringing in money, though, there was no guarantee that the madam would elevate her to one of the Three Princesses. It wouldn’t help her case that her only claim over the other two was one of quantity, not quality.

Unpleasant though it might be to contemplate, what if she were to bring down Joka’s value? What if the jade tablet that was Joka’s trademark were to disappear?

That wouldn’t be enough to lower Joka’s value. Yet Zulin’s Sister, suffering an inferiority complex because of her birth and upbringing, might have wanted to steal it anyway.

She was turning out to be a tough nut to crack, though. She wasn’t going to confess to everything just because of a stain on her windowsill.

“Me and every other courtesan in this place, I assume. Why would you only accuse me of anything? There must have been other customers who stayed at least as late as mine, and my room isn’t the only one beneath Joka’s quarters. What about them?”

Zulin’s Sister pointed at the taciturn courtesan and the one with the erhu. Neither of them looked very pleased to hear a junior lady refer to them with such undisguised contempt.

“I didn’t have a long-stayer today; I wasn’t even in my room,” said the one with the erhu.

“Oh? I’m sorry to hear you have so few customers.”

“Why, you...” The other woman made a fearsome grimace and might have given Zulin’s Sister a good whack if one of the menservants hadn’t held her back.

She certainly knows how to get under people’s skin, Maomao thought. She was a quick wit—maybe to compensate for Zulin’s inability to talk.

“Couldn’t be me,” said the quiet courtesan.

“Her customer had already left,” said Maomao. That woman’s customer had stayed late, but had gone before the thief broke in. But since the courtesan was a woman of even fewer words than Maomao, Maomao found she had to provide some additional explanation.

“Couldn’t he have pretended to go home and then come back to break in?” Zulin’s Sister said.

The other courtesan shook her head. “Not this man.”

“Her customer this morning was a gourmand with a very refined palate and a girth to match. I can’t picture this guy jumping out a window,” said Maomao, who had checked the register to see who had been in each room. A quick inquiry with the madam revealed what each customer was like.

“That’s true. The thief was definitely on the thin side,” Pairin added.

Zulin’s Sister glared at Maomao.

Maomao glared right back. “Either you or your customer had the idea of helping him break into Joka’s room, and you conspired with him to do it,” she said. “You made sure you knew when Joka would be in the bath, so that she wouldn’t be in her room. It just so happened that Pairin’s customer stayed long, though, and you couldn’t have them hearing anything—which is why you spiked their breakfast congee with the sleeping draught we usually use on bad customers.”

“Spiked it? And how did I do that?”

“Simple. You’re working here to help take care of your little sister Zulin. It would be easy enough for you to find out what kind of work she’s doing.”

Among the duties of the apprentices was taking breakfast to the upper courtesans. Zulin’s Sister just had to find out when breakfast would be served, and mix in a bit of the sleeping medicine just before then.

“The madam’s been teaching you, which means you would know that a warm bowl of congee sitting around is going to be given priority. If your customer was in on the whole thing, he wouldn’t object to his woman stepping out for a moment. It was your bad luck that Pairin happened to give her breakfast to Master Lihaku, so she didn’t go to sleep. Instead she heard the noise from next door.”

“Uh-huh. That’s a very convincing little story, but it’s all supposition, isn’t it? Where’s the actual proof?”

I thought she might say that.

Maomao gave a sniff—then did it again, then started sniffing her way around the room until she came to the place where the smell was strongest. It was just in front of the chest of clothing.

“Your thief is no fool,” she said. “When you burgle a place, you do it in an outfit that’s safe to be seen in.”

She thought back to Pairin’s testimony: “He had a brown outfit on. I couldn’t really describe his jacket, because I only saw him from behind, and only for a second. But underneath he was wearing loose pants.”

A very common kind of outfit, yes, but if it were the same thing he’d been wearing when he’d walked into the establishment, he’d have been suspected. Which would mean...

Maomao turned the chest upside down.

“What do you think you’re doing?!” Zulin’s Sister cried, grabbing at the clothes.

Maomao shoved her aside and snatched a brown jacket—one meant for a man.

Thought so.

She gave the jacket a sniff. “Pairin. This look anything like what the thief was wearing? It’s a man’s jacket.”

“Oh yeah! It was a lot like that.”

“It’s like that, it doesn’t mean it is that! You act like there’s only one man’s jacket in the world!”

A customer might forget their jacket, or trade it with a courtesan for an item of her clothing. The thief had probably put on some piece of forgotten clothing to do the crime, then come back here to change before leaving.

“You’re right—there are plenty just like it.” Maomao gave the jacket another sniff. There was something on it, something besides body odor. “But what’s this smell? It’s a very strong perfume.”

“That’s my perfume,” Zulin’s Sister said.

“Really?” Maomao brought the brown jacket to Joka, who took it with her fingertips, clearly repulsed by handling an article of men’s clothing, but sniffed at it.

“My, so this is your perfume?” she said.

“That’s right.”

“Interesting. It smells just like an imported perfume I got from one of my customers, a very important businessman. I suppose he was lying when he told me it was one of a kind, then.”

Maomao had noticed it the moment she’d entered Zulin’s Sister’s room.

Joka tossed the jacket away and stood in front of Zulin’s Sister. “You can’t talk your way out of this anymore,” she said with a look of cold fury. The next second, her open palm was up and flying toward Zulin’s Sister’s cheek. Zulin’s Sister took the blow on the left side of her face and leaned hard to the right. Barely an instant later, the back of Joka’s right hand connected with Zulin’s Sister’s right cheek.

“Ow! Ow, that hurts!”

Joka said nothing, but continued to slap the girl. The old madam didn’t stop her. The girl had brought it on herself, for one thing, and besides, Joka was stopping at slaps—an open palm was permitted in fights between courtesans.

“Won’t she swell up if you hit her too hard?” Maomao asked.

“I’m not going to let anyone see her for a couple or three days anyway,” the madam replied. In other words: Hit her as hard as you like.

“What the heck is going on?!” exclaimed Chou-u, who had come running at the sound of the commotion, Zulin hot on his heels.

With an expression of astonishment, Zulin leaped forward when she saw Joka beating her sister. She pounded on Joka, trying to get her to stop.

“Scram. You want me to beat you too?” Joka said, shoving the girl aside.

Zulin’s Sister took the opportunity to place a firm kick in Joka’s midriff, sending her sprawling backward, spittle flying from her mouth.

“Just what do you think you’re doing?!” the madam demanded, grabbing Zulin’s Sister by the hair.

“Don’t you dare touch Zulin!” she yelled. “You think I wanted to do it?! I had no choice! I did what I had to to earn my money—what’s wrong with that?!” Her eyes were red. “If a prostitute doesn’t move up in the world, the only way to go is down. I’ll do whatever I must to survive in this life. And I can’t survive on ideals and pretty talk! I know you’re all thinking it, whether or not you admit it—her customers pay well. If only we could make a little more, we could have an extra side dish!”

The other courtesans knitted their brows at that.

“You’re all thinking it! If I hadn’t done it, someone else would have! I know you all feel the same way I do—that the old guard are in the way, clinging to the top spots in a top brothel!”

“That’s enough out of you,” the madam growled. “Enough out of a second-rate whore who can’t bring down the ‘old guard’ by doing a better job. That’s your fault, not hers.” She gave a snorting laugh, then turned to the menservants. “Hey, what are you standing around for? Take her away. I can see she needs an attitude adjustment at the very least. I’ll decide how to do it later.”

Zulin’s Sister was hauled off to the discipline room. Zulin, dripping snot, clung to the madam’s feet, but the other courtesans pried her off.

“C’mon, Zulin, you can’t do this,” Chou-u said, trying to placate his lackey, but Zulin gave a great voiceless cry.

Maomao simply watched.

The madam always administered her discipline in a way that wouldn’t harm her girls’ prospective sales—but that sometimes made it more like torture, not less. She was trying to teach a lesson. Not just to Zulin’s Sister, but to the other women, lest they try to imitate her.

For a courtesan, these were the facts of life.