Judge Dee at Work

MURDER ON NEW YEAR'S EVE

The scene of this story is also laid in Lan-fang. As a rule a magistrate's term of office was three years. But at the end of the year A.D. 674, when Judge Dee had been serving four years in Lan-fang, there was still no news from the capital. This is the story of what happened on the last evening of that dreary year. In the criminal cases previously solved by Judge Dee his theories always proved right in the end. However, the reader will see that in this particular case Judge Dee made two big mistakes. But, contrary to the rule, this time two wrongs made a right!

When Judge Dee had put away the last file and locked the drawer of his desk he suddenly shivered. He rose and, pulling his padded house-robe closer round his tall frame, he walked across his cold, empty private office to the window. He pushed it open, but after a brief glance at the dark courtyard of the tribunal outside, he quickly pulled it shut. The snow had stopped but a gust of icy wind had nearly blown out the candle on his desk.

The judge went to the couch against the back wall. With a sigh he started to fold back the quilts. That night, the last of the weary year that had passed, the fourth of his stay in Lan-fang, he would sleep in his office. For his own house at the back of the tribunal compound was deserted except for a few servants. Two months before, his First Lady had set out to visit her aged mother in her home town, and his two other wives and his children had accompanied her, together with his faithful old adviser Sergeant Hoong. They would be back early in spring — but spring seemed very far away on this cold and dreary night.

Judge Dee took up the teapot to pour himself a last cup of tea. He found to his dismay that it had grown cold. He was about to clap his hands to summon a clerk, then remembered that he had given the personnel of the tribunal the night off, including his three personal assistants. The only men about would be the con­stables on guard duty at the main gate.

Pulling his house-bonnet over his ears, he took up the candle and walked through the dark, deserted chancery to the guard­house.

The four constables squatting round the blazing log fire in the centre of the stone floor jumped up when they saw Judge Dee enter and hastily set their helmets straight. The judge could see only the broad back of their headman. He was leaning out of the window cursing violently at someone outside.

'Hey there!' Judge Dee barked at him. When the headman turned round and bowed deeply, he said curtly, 'Better mind your language on the last day of the year!’

The headman muttered something about an insolent ragamuffin who dared to bother the tribunal so late at night. 'The small monkey wants me to find his mother for him!’ he added dis­gustedly. 'Do they take me for a nursemaid?'

'Hardly that!' Judge Dee said dryly. 'But what is it all about?' He stepped up to the window and looked out.

In the street below the tiny boy was cowering against the wall for shelter against the icy wind. The moonlight shone on his tear-stained face. He cried: 'It is all ... all over the floor! I slipped and fell in it ... And Mother is gone!’

He stared at his small hands, then tried to rub them clean on his thin, patched jacket. Judge Dee saw the red smears. Quickly turning round, he ordered the headman, 'Get my horse and follow me with two men!'

As soon as he was outside, the judge lifted the boy up and placed him on his saddle. Then he put his foot in the stirrup and slowly mounted behind him. Wincing, he remembered how not so long ago he could still jump on his horse. But a touch of rheumatism had been bothering him of late. He suddenly felt tired, and old. Four years in Lan-fang ... With an effort he took hold of himself. He said in a cheerful voice to the sobbing boy, 'Now we'll go together and find your mother for you! Who is your father, and where do you live?'

'My father is pedlar Wang,' said the boy, swallowing his tears. 'We live in the second alley to the west of the Temple of Con­fucius, not far from the Watergate.'

'That's easy!' Judge Dee said. He carefully guided his horse along the snow-covered street. The headman and two constables rode silently behind him. A strong gust of wind blew the snow from the roofs, the fine particles striking their faces like so many needles. Wiping his eyes, the judge asked again, 'What is your name, small boy?'

'I am called Hsiao-pao, sir,' he answered in a trembling voice.

'Hsiao-pao, that means Small Treasure,' Judge Dee said. 'What a nice name! Now where is your father?'

'I don't know, sir!’ the boy cried out unhappily. When father came home, he had such a big quarrel with mother. Mother didn't have any food ready, she said there weren't even any noodles in the house. Then ... then father began to scold her, he shouted that she had passed the afternoon with Mr Shen, the old pawn­broker. Mother started to cry, and I ran out. I thought I could perhaps borrow a package of noodles from the grocer, to make father happy again. But there was such a crowd at the grocer's that I could not get through, and I went back. But then father and mother were not there anymore, there was all that blood, all over the floor. I slipped, and I ...'

He burst out in sobs that shook his small back. The judge drew the boy closer to him in the fold of his fur coat. They rode on in silence.

When Judge Dee saw the large gate of the Temple of Confucius looming ahead against the winter sky, he descended from his horse. Putting the boy down too, he said to the headman, 'We are nearly there. We shall leave our horses here at the gate. We'd better not give warning that we have come.'

They entered a narrow alley, lined on both sides by a row of ramshackle wooden houses. The boy pointed at a street door that stood ajar. A dim light shone behind the paper window, but the second floor was brightly lit and a confused noise of singing and shouting came from there.

'Who lives above?' Judge Dee asked, pausing in front of the door.

'That's Tailor Liu,' the boy said. 'They are having some friends in for the feast tonight.'

'You show the headman the way up there, Hsiao-pao,' the judge said. To the headman he added in a low voice: 'Leave the boy with the people upstairs, but bring that fellow Liu down here for questioning.' Then he entered the house, followed by his two constables.

The cold, bare room was lit only by a spluttering oil lamp on a rickety corner stand. In the centre, on a large, coarsely made table, stood three bowls of cracked earthenware, and a large kitchen chopper lay at one end, spattered with blood. On the stone-flagged floor there was more blood, in a large pool.

Pointing at the chopper, the elder constable remarked, 'Someone neatly cut someone's throat with that, sir!'

Judge Dee nodded. He felt the bloodstain on the chopper with his forefinger and found that it was still wet. Looking round, he quickly surveyed the rest of the dim room. Against the back wall stood a large couch with faded blue curtains, and a small un­curtained bed was placed against the wall on the left, evidently the boy's. The plaster walls were bare, and had here and there been clumsily patched. Judge Dee went to the closed door by the side of the bedstead. It led into a small kitchen. The ashes in the stove were cold.

When the judge stepped back into the room the younger con­stable remarked with a sneer, 'Not a place for robbers to visit, Your Honour! I have heard about that pedlar Wang, he is as poor as a rat!'

'The motive was passion,' the judge said curtly. He pointed at a silk handkerchief that was lying on the floor, near the bed. The flickering light of the oil lamp shone on the large character 'Shen' embroidered on it in gold thread. 'After the boy had left to borrow the noodles,' Judge Dee went on, 'the pedlar found the handkerchief, left by his wife's paramour. Heated as he was by the quarrel, it was too much for him. He took the chopper and killed her. The old, old story.' He shrugged his shoulders. 'He must have gone to hide her body. Is the pedlar a strong fellow?'

'Strong as an ox, Your Honour!' the elder constable replied. 'I have often seen him about, he walks the street from morning till night carrying that heavy box on his back.'

Judge Dee glanced at the large square box covered with oil cloth standing next to the door. He nodded slowly.

The headman came in, pushing in front of him a tall, lean man. He seemed very drunk. Tottering on his feet, he gave the judge a bleary look from his small, shifty eyes. The headman grabbed his collar and forced him down on his knees. Judge Dee folded his arms in his wide sleeves and said curtly, 'A murder was committed here. State exactly what you heard and saw!'

'It must have been that woman's fault!' the tailor muttered with a thick tongue. 'Always gadding about, but not even looking at a fine upstanding fellow like me!' He hiccoughed. 'I am too poor for her, just like her husband! It's the money of the pawn­broker she's after, the slut!’

'Keep a civil tongue in your mouth!' Judge Dee ordered angrily. 'And answer my question! The ceiling here consists only of thin boards; you must have heard them quarrel!’

The headman gave him a kick in the ribs, and barked: 'Speak up!'

'I didn't hear a thing, Your Excellency!’ the frightened tailor whined. 'Those bastards upstairs are all drunk, they are shouting and singing all the time! And that stupid woman of mine over­turned the bowl, and she was too drunk to wipe the stuff up. I had to shake her quite some time before I could make her set to work.'

'Nobody left the room?' Judge Dee asked.

'Not them!' the tailor muttered. They are all too busy gloat­ing over the pig Butcher Li slaughtered for us! And who has to do the roasting? I do! Those fellows only swill my wine, they are too lazy even to keep the coal fire burning right! The room got full of smoke, I had to open the window. Then I saw that slut run off!'

Judge Dee raised his eyebrows. He thought for a while, then asked: 'Was her husband with her?'

'Would she want him?' the tailor sneered. 'She does better alone!'

The judge quickly turned round. He stooped and scrutinized the floor. He noticed among the confused, bloody footprints those of small pointed shoes leading to the door. He asked the tailor in a tense voice: 'What direction did she go?'

To the watergate!' the man answered sullenly.

Judge Dee pulled his fur coat round him. "Take that rascal upstairs!' he ordered the constables. Going to the door, he whis­pered hurriedly to the headman, 'You wait for me inside here. When Wang returns, arrest him! The pawnbroker must have looked in here to get his handkerchief just when Wang, quarrel­ling with his wife, discovered it. Wang killed him, and his wife fled.'

The judge went out and tramped through the snow to the next street. He mounted his horse and rode to the watergate as fast as he could. One death was enough, he reflected.

Arriving at the bottom of the stone steps leading up the gate tower, he jumped down and went hurriedly to the steep stairs, slippery with the frozen snow. On top of the tower he saw a woman, standing on the farthest parapet. She had gathered her robe round her, and with bent body looked down at the water of the city moat far below.

Judge Dee ran up to her, and laid his hand on her arm. 'You shouldn't do that, Mrs Wang!’ he said gravely. 'Killing yourself won't bring the dead back to life!’

The woman shrank back against the battlement and looked at the judge with startled eyes, her lips parted in fright. He saw that although her face was drawn and haggard, she was still handsome in a common sort of way.

'You must be from the tribunal!' she faltered. That means they have discovered that my poor husband murdered him! And it's all my fault!' She burst out in heart-breaking sobs.

'Was it the pawnbroker Shen he murdered?' Judge Dee asked.

She nodded her head forlornly. Then she cried out: 'I am such a fool! I swear there was nothing between Shen and me; I only wanted to tease my husband a little... .' She pushed a wet lock back from her forehead. 'Shen had ordered a set of embroidered handkerchiefs from me, to give to his concubine as a New Year's present. I had not told my husband, I wanted to surprise him with the money. Tonight, when Wang found the last handkerchief I was working on, he went to get the kitchen knife, shout­ing that he would kill Shen and me. I fled outside; I tried to get to my sister in the next street, but the house was closed. And when I came back to our place, my husband was gone and ... there was all that blood.' She covered her face with her hands, then added sobbing: 'Shen ... he must have come for the handkerchief and ... Wang killed him. It's all my fault, how can I go on living when my husband ...?'

'Remember that you have your son to look after,' Judge Dee interrupted her. He gripped her arm firmly and led her to the stairs.

Back at the house he told the headman to take the woman upstairs. When the headman had done so, the judge said, 'We shall stand close to the door, against the wall. We have only to wait for the murderer's return. Wang killed Shen here, then went out to hide his victim's body. He planned to come back here to clean up that blood, but his son brought us here, and his plan has fallen through.' After a while he added with a sigh, 'I am sorry for that boy, he's a likable little fellow!’

The four men stood against the wall, two on either side of the door, Judge Dee next to the pedlar's box. Upstairs, some coarse voices were shouting in argument.

Suddenly the door opened and a big, broad-shouldered man came in. The constables jumped on him. Taken by surprise, be­fore he knew what was happening they had chained Wang's arms behind his back, and pressed him down on his knees. A package wrapped in oil paper fell from his sleeve, noodles spilled on the floor. One of the constables kicked the package into a corner.

Upstairs some people were dancing. The thin boards of the ceiling bent and creaked.

'Don't throw away good food!' Judge Dee barked, irritated at the constable. Tick that up!'

Thus rebuked, the constable made haste to scoop up the noodles. When placing them on the table, he muttered, 'They aren't much good any more, the dirt that came down from the ceiling has spoiled them.'

'The rascal has blood on his right hand, Your Honour!' the headman who had been inspecting Wang's chains exclaimed excitedly.

Wang had been staring with wide eyes at the blood on the floor in front of him. His lips were moving but no sound came. Now he lifted his face up to the judge and brought out: 'Where is my wife? What has happened to her?'

Judge Dee sat down on the box and folded his hands in his wide sleeves. He said coldly: 'It is I, the magistrate, who asks questions here! Tell me ...'

'Where is my wife?' Wang shouted frantically. He wanted to scramble up but the headman hit him over the head with the heavy handle of his whip. Wang dazedly shook his head, and stammered: 'My wife ... and my son ...'

'Speak up! What happened here tonight?' the judge asked.

'Tonight ...' Wang said in a toneless voice, then hesitated.

The headman gave him a kick. 'Answer and speak the truth!' he growled.

Wang frowned. He again looked at the blood on the floor. At last he began, 'Tonight, when I was walking home, the grocer told me that the pawnbroker Shen had been here. And when I came in, there was nothing to eat, not even our New Year's noodles. I told my wife I did not want her any more, that she could go to that fellow Shen, and stay there. I said that the entire neighbourhood knew that he visited her when I was out. She would not say yes or no. Then I found that handkerchief there by the bed. I went for the chopper. I would first kill her and then go and finish off that fellow Shen. But when I came back from the kitchen with the chopper, my wife had run away. I grabbed the handkerchief, I wanted to throw that in Shen's face before I cut his throat. But I scratched my hand on the needle stuck in it.'

Wang paused. He bit his lips and swallowed. 'I knew then what an utter fool I had been. Shen had not dropped the hand­kerchief there; it was one he had ordered from her, and on which she was still working. ... I went out to look for my wife. I went to her sister's home, but nobody was there. Then I walked to Shen's shop; I wanted to pawn my jacket and buy something nice for my wife. But Shen said he owed me a string of coppers for a set of twenty handkerchiefs he had ordered from her. The last one had not been quite finished when he had looked in at our house in the afternoon, but his concubine had been very pleased with the ones he had given her. And since it was New Year's eve, he said, he would pay me anyway. I bought a package of noodles, and a paper flower for my wife, and came here.' Gazing at the judge, he burst out: 'Tell me, what has happened to her? Where is she?'

The headman guffawed. He shouted: 'What a string of stupid lies the dog is telling! The bastard hopes to gain time!' Lifting the handle of his whip, he asked the judge: 'Shall I knock his teeth in, Your Honour, to make the truth come out a bit easier?'

Judge Dee shook his head. Slowly stroking his long sidewhiskers, he looked fixedly at the drawn face of the pedlar kneeling before him. Then he ordered the headman: 'See whether he has a paper flower on him!'

The headman put his hand in the pedlar's bosom, and brought out a red paper flower. He held it up for the judge to see, then threw it disdainfully on the floor and put his foot on it.

Judge Dee rose. He walked over to the bedstead, picked up the handkerchief and looked it over carefully. Then he went to the table and stood there for a while, staring down at the dirty noodles on the piece of oil paper. The only sound heard was the heavy breathing of the kneeling man.

Suddenly the uproar of voices on the floor above burst out again. Judge Dee looked up at the ceiling. Then he turned to the headman and ordered: 'Bring those two down here!’

As soon as the pedlar saw his wife and his son, his mouth opened in astonished delight. He cried out: 'Heaven be praised, you are safe!' He would have jumped up, but the constables roughly pressed him down again.

His wife threw herself down on the floor in front of the kneel­ing man. She moaned, 'Forgive me, forgive me! I was such a fool, I only wanted to tease you! What have I done, what have I done! Now you have ... They will take you away and ...'

'Rise, you two!' the stern voice of the judge interrupted her. At his peremptory gesture the two constables let go of Wang's shoulders.

Take the chains off him!’ Judge Dee ordered. As the dumb-founded headman carried out this order, the judge continued to Wang, 'Tonight your foolish jealousy nearly made you lose your wife. It is your son who averted a terrible tragedy, he came to warn me just in time. Let tonight be a lesson to you — to both of you, man and wife. New Year's eve is a time to remember. To remember the blessings Heaven has bestowed on you, the gifts we are wont to take too much for granted and forget too soon. You love each other, you are in good health, and you have a fine son. That is more than many can say! Make the resolution that henceforward you shall try to prove yourselves worthy of those blessings!' Turning to the small boy, he patted him on his head and added: 'Lest you forget, I order you to change this boy's name into Ta-pao. That means "Big Treasure"!'

AS SOON AS THE PEDLAR SAW HIS WIFE AND SON ...

He signalled to his three men and went to the door.

'But ... Your Honour, that murder ...' the woman fal­tered.

Pausing in the open doorway, the judge said with a bleak smile: 'There was no murder. When the people upstairs had killed a pig, the tailor's wife overturned the bowl in which they had poured the blood, and she was too drunk to wipe it up at once. It leaked through the cracks in the ceiling on to the table and the floor in this room. Good-bye!'

The woman put her hand over her mouth to suppress a cry of joy. Her husband smiled a little foolishly at her, then stooped and picked up the paper flower. Having clumsily smoothed out its petals, he stepped up to her, and stuck the flower in her hair. The boy looked up at his parents, a broad smile on his small round face.

The headman had led Judge Dee's horse in front of the door. Only after the judge had jumped into the saddle did he suddenly realize that his rheumatism was gone.

The gong of the nightwatch announced midnight. Firecrackers started an uproar in the market place. As the judge urged on his horse he turned round in his saddle and called out:

'Happy New Year!'

He doubted whether the three people in the doorway had heard him. It didn't really matter.