Bridge Of Birds by Barry Hughart

perfectly, and never has your beauty been more
     breathtaking.”
    Fainting Maid posed prettily.
    “Absolute perfection,” Master Li sighed happily. “A lovely lady in a lovely setting. One
     can scarcely believe that so tranquil a spot could have been the scene of tragedy, yet I
     have heard that here a door was locked, and a key was stolen, and a handsome young man and
     the girl who loved him lost their lives.”
    “A stupid soldier and a slut,” Fainting Maid said coldly.
    Her father winced, but Li Kao at least partially agreed.
    “Well, I'm not so sure about the slut, but the soldier was stupid indeed,” he said
     thoughtfully. “He was honored with the opportunity of marrying you, O vision of
     perfection, yet he dared to prefer a lowly dancing girl. Why, he even gave her a valuable
     jade pendant that should rightfully have been yours!”
    I was beginning to sense a certain menace behind Li Kao's beaming smile.
    “I would imagine that it was the first time in your life that you had been denied
     something that you wanted,” said Master Li. “You know, I find it rather odd that Bright
     Star wasn't wearing the captain's pendant when they fished her body from the water. She
     would scarcely have paused to take it off before seeking a watery grave, unless, of
     course, she wasn't seeking a watery grave at all. Meaning that somebody hired a pack of
     thugs to lock a door and steal a key and murder a dancing girl.”
    His hands shot out and jerked a gold chain from Fainting Maid's neck, and up over her
     head. At the end of the chain was a jade pendant, which he bounced in the palm of his
     hand, and I realized with a sick sense of shock that I had seen it twice before. First
     between Fainting Maid's breasts in the carriage, and then in ghost form between the
     breasts of Bright Star.
    “Tell me, dear child, do you always wear this next to your sweet little heart?” Master Li
     asked, smiling as warmly as ever.
    Henpecked Ho was staring at his monstrous daughter with horror and revulsion, and I
     suppose that the expression on my face was similar. Fainting Maid decided that Li Kao was
     the safest.
    “Surely you do not mean to suggest -”
    “Ah, but I do.”
    “You cannot possibly suspect -”
    “Wrong again.”
    “This incredible nonsense -”
    “Is not nonsense.”
    Fainting Maid turned red, turned white, clutched her chest, reeled, and screeched, “Oh,
     thou has slain me!” Then she lurched two steps back and six to the left and disappeared.
    Li Kao gazed at the spot where she had vanished. “Captious critics might tend to agree
     with you,” he said mildly, and then he turned to her father. “Ho, you are perfectly free
     to hear whatever you choose, but what I hear is a magpie that is imitating the sounds of a
     scream and a splash.”
    Henpecked Ho's face was white, and his hands trembled, and his voice was unsteady, but he
     never flinched.
    “Clever little creature,” he whispered. “Now it is imitating the sound of somebody
     screaming 'Help!'”
    Li Kao linked arms with Henpecked Ho, and the two of them strolled up the path while I
     trotted nervously behind.
    “What a talented magpie,” Master Li observed. “How on earth can it manage that sound of
     thrashing in the water, and the gurgle that sounds strikingly like somebody sinking down
     into a deep pool?”
    “Nature is full of remarkable talents,” Henpecked Ho whispered. “Yours, for example.”
    “There is a slight flaw in my character,” Master Li said modestly.
    When we returned an hour later I judged from the silence that the talented magpie was no
     longer with us.
    “I think that I had best remove this mark from the path, lest busybodies wonder why it is
     precisely two feet in front and six feet to the right of an old well from which somebody
     has rashly removed the cover,” said Master Li. “Ready?”
    “Ready,” I said.
    “Ready,” said Henpecked Ho.
    We rent our garments and