Chapter 18: The Cell

Mingshan's hand shot out for the ledger, and Qiao put her palm flat on the cover.

"Touch it," she said, "and every person in this passage will see you do it."

His hand stopped an inch from the red string.

The sergeant took one step forward.

Behind Qiao the lane had gone as silent as a held breath.

"This is bank property," Mingshan said, very softly. "Stolen. Sergeant, take it."

"Sergeant," said a new voice from the doorway.

The head of the station stood there, a lean grey man in a good uniform, with a doorkeeper at his shoulder.

He looked at the book, at the girl, at the banker's gloves, and at three hundred faces in the passage.

"I heard a crowd," he said. "I did not hear that anyone had been hurt. Miss Lin, you are the wanted woman?"

"I am."

"And this is the book you took?"

"It is the book I took."

"The first page is addressed to the Tingsong Teahouse."

Qiao's voice shook once and held.

"Read it, sir, and then charge me."

The station head sat down at the table, undid the red bow, and opened the cover.

The room waited.

He read the first line.

He turned a page, and another, and his eyes moved down the column of signatures.

When he looked up, his face had changed.

"Banker Pei," he said. "Whose hand is this?"

"A clerical matter."

"It is your signature. Eighty-seven times."

"The book is mine, and I will have it."

"The book is evidence in a charge that you swore out yourself."

The station head closed the cover.

"It goes into the iron box, in front of all these witnesses, under the seal of this station."

"The magistrate will have it with the guild on the first."

"You have no right..."

"I have a pen and a crowd," the station head said. "Sergeant, write it in the register."

It was written, line by line.

The seal was pressed in hot red wax.

Mingshan stood without moving while the box was locked and the key was taken away.

Then he put on his gloves, one finger at a time.

He said nothing at all.

He left through the back, and the doorkeeper held the door for him.

The station head put both women in a cell.

It was clean, with two benches and a high barred window, and he locked it on them himself with a courteous bow.

"For the look of it, ladies," he said. "Until the street goes home."

The street did not go home.

Through the bars of the high window came the sound of hundreds of people settling down on the cobbles to wait.

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