Chapter 22: Cleared

Qiao looked at the warrant on the floor for a long moment.

Then she bent and picked it up.

It was a single sheet of cheap paper, folded in four, with her name in a clerk's hand and a red stamp across the foot.

"Lin Qiao, junior bookkeeper, wanted for taking the Hengtai Bank's ledger and twelve hundred yuan."

She read it aloud in the same voice she had used for the ledger.

"This is a lie," said the chairman of the Guild from the head of the table.

"It was sworn by a man now struck from this roll."

"By the authority of this hall it is void."

He nodded to the station head.

The station head took the paper out of Qiao's hand, tore it once down the middle, and again across.

Then he held out the four pieces to her.

"Yours, Miss Lin," he said. "A keepsake."

She did not take them.

She looked at Jinyu.

Jinyu understood, and put out her palm.

Qiao laid the pieces in it, one at a time.

"Your name is clear," the station head said.

"The twelve hundred is accounted for to the dollar, and the Guild commends your arithmetic."

"As for the five hundred reward, I think it must go to the lane."

A shout went up in the gallery.

It rolled down the stairs and out through the stone gate.

The crowd in the court took it up and passed it to the street.

By noon it had reached the Tingsong.

By four, Auntie Hu had torn the last paper strip off the shutters with her teeth, as promised, and the Tingsong was open.

It had never been so full.

Every table was taken, and the benches, and the floor around the stage.

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