The Monkey and the Tiger

THE NIGHT OF THE TIGER

Huddled up in his heavy fur coat, the judge was riding all alone along the highway across the deserted plain. It was late in the afternoon, the grey shadows of the winter night were hovering already over the bleak, flooded land, through which the raised highway cut like a crack in a tarnished mirror. The water reflected the leaden sky that seemed to hang very low over the rippling waves. The north wind drove masses of dark rain-clouds towards the mist-covered mountains in the distance.

Deep in thought, the judge had ridden ahead, leaving the armed men of his escort more than half a mile behind. Hunched over the neck of his horse, his fur cap pulled well down over his ears, he stared straight at the road before him. He was aware that his thoughts ought to dwell on the future. In two days' time he would be in the imperial capital and assuming his new post, the high office he had been appointed to quite unexpectedly. But constantly his mind went back to the past week. The tragic experience that had marked his last days as magistrate of Pei-chow kept nagging at him, dragging him back to that small, dismal district high up in the frozen north which they had left three days before.* (*See The Chinese Nail Murders, London, Michael Joseph, 1961.)

For three days they had been riding south through the snow-bound northern country. Then a sudden thaw had set in. It was causing disastrous floods in the province they had entered now. In the morning they had met long files of peasants, fleeing north from their inundated fields, wearily trudging along bent under the bundles of their scanty be­longings, their feet wrapped in mud-covered rags. When they had halted for the noon-rice at the traffic control station, the captain commanding the judge's escort had reported that they were coming now to the worst stretch, where the Yel­low River had overflown its entire north bank; he had ad­vised waiting there for more information on the water-level in the area ahead. But the judge had decided that they would travel on, for he was under orders to proceed to the capital without delay. Besides, he knew from the map that across the river the land rose, and there stood the fortress where he planned to stay the night.

The highway was completely deserted. A few isolated roofs of submerged farmsteads sticking up here and there from the mass of muddy water were the only signs that this had been until recently a fertile, well-populated plain. When the judge came nearer to the mountain range, however, he saw two barracks on the left side of the road ahead. About a dozen men were standing there, close together. As he rode up to them he saw that they were local militia, wearing thick leather caps and jackets and knee-high boots. A stretch of the highway had crumbled away there, leaving a gap of more than a hundred feet through which rushed a stream of turbid water. The men were worriedly looking at the low wall of fag­gots that reinforced the sides of their improvised bridgehead.

A narrow temporary bridge led across the gap to the opposite bank, where the highway went up the thickly wooded mountain slope. The bridge had been hastily con­structed from heavy logs, lashed together with thick hemp-ropes. It rose and fell with the churning water it was half floating on.

'It isn't safe to cross, sir!' the leader of the militia called out. 'The current is growing stronger all the time, and we can't keep the bridge clear. Better turn back. If the ropes break, we'll have to abandon this bridgehead.'

The judge turned round in his saddle. Narrowing his eyes against the biting north wind, he peered at the group of horsemen in the distance. They were riding at a fast pace, he thought they would catch up with him soon. After a glance at the hills over on the other side of the gap, he decided to take the chance. According to the roadmap, it was only half an hour's ride across the mountain range to the Yellow River. There the ferry would carry him to the fort­ress on the south bank.

He drove his horse onto the slippery logs. The bridge swayed to and fro, and the thick ropes creaked as he ad­vanced cautiously, his horse stepping ahead with stiff legs. When he was about half-way, muddy waves came lapping over the logs. He patted the neck of his horse reassuringly. Suddenly a tree trunk, carried along by the current, crashed against the bridge. The billows that came surging over the logs rose up to the belly of his horse and thoroughly wet his riding boots. The judge urged the prancing animal ahead, onto the second half of the bridge. There the logs were dry, and soon they were on firm ground again. He made his horse step quickly up the high bank, then halted under the tall trees. Just as he turned his head round there was a loud crashing sound. Now a large cluster of uprooted trees had smashed into the bridge. Its central section heaved upwards like the curving back of a dragon, then the ropes tore and the logs came apart. There was nothing left between him and the bridgehead but a mass of foaming water.

He waved his riding-whip at the militia to signify that he was riding on. His escort would come along as soon as the bridge had been repaired. He would wait for them in the fortress.

After the first bend he was under the lee of the dark, tall oak trees that rose on either side of the road. Now he real­ized, however, how cold his feet were in their soggy boots. But it was a relief to be on firm ground again after the long ride through the flooded region.

Suddenly there was the sound of breaking branches. A wild-looking horseman came out from the thick undergrowth. His long hair was bound up with a piece of red cloth, a short cape of tigerskin hung round his wide shoulders and a broad­sword was dangling on his back. He brought his horse to a halt in the middle of the road, thus barring the way. Fixing the judge with his small, cruel eyes, he let his short spear whirl around by a quick, two-handed movement.

The judge halted his horse.

'Get out of my way!' he shouted.

The other let go of the tip of the spear, holding on to the butt end. The sharp point described a wide circle, grazing the forelock of Judge Dee's horse. As the judge pulled the reins, all the pent-up emotions of the last few days found an outlet in a sudden, savage rage. He raised his hand to his right shoulder and, quick as lightning, drew the sword hang­ing on his back. He aimed a long blow at the bandit, but the ruffian parried it expertly with the point of his spear, and at once tried to hit Judge Dee's head with the butt end. The judge ducked, but then the spear point came whirling down on him. He caught the shaft on the razor-sharp edge of his sword, and the wood was cut clean through. As the robber was looking, amazed, at the stump in his hand, the judge pressed his horse on close to the other, and raised his sword for the death blow on the other's neck. But the man swung his horse round with his knees practically at the same time, and the sword swished over his head. The ruffian uttered a vile curse but made no move to draw his sword. He urged his horse on to the farther side of the road and shouted over his shoulder:

'One more rat in the trap!'

JUDGE DEE CAUGHT THE SPEAR ON HIS SWORD

He grinned, then disappeared into the thick foliage.

The judge sheathed his sword. Driving on his horse, he reflected that he must pull himself together. An insolent highwayman ought not to be sufficient cause for losing his temper. The impact of the tragedy at Pei-chow had affected him deeply, so deeply that he wondered forlornly whether he would ever succeed in regaining his inward peace.

He met no one while ascending the last ridge, and when he had arrived on the top he caught again the full blast of the north wind. Penetrating his thick fur coat, it chilled him to the bone. He quickly rode down to the bank and halted his horse in front of the vast expanse of the swollen river. Its churning waves beat against the rocky shore farther to the west. The opposite bank was shrouded in a low-hanging mist. There was no sign of a ferry, and of the quay only two broken pillars were left. White foam spurted up against them. The waves rushed on from east to west with a low rumbling sound, carrying along heavy logs and clusters of green shrubs.

With a frown the judge surveyed the desolate scene, dis­mal and grey in the gathering dusk. The only habitation in sight was a large old country house, standing all by itself on a low hill a mile or so to the west. It was surrounded by a high wall; on the east corner stood a watchtower. The whiffs of smoke rising up from the roof of the main building were carried away swiftly by the strong wind.

Stifling a sigh the judge guided his horse to the winding road that led up to the hill. He had come to a dead end. It couldn't be helped, he and his retinue would have to break their journey here, pending the repair of the ferry.

The ground surrounding the country house was covered by tall grass and large boulders. There were no trees, but the mountain slope behind it was thickly wooded. Some people were moving about there, in front of what seemed to be the mouth of a large cave. Three horsemen came from among the trees and rode down the mountain slope.

When the judge was about half-way to the house, his eye fell on a high stake driven into the ground by the roadside. A bulky object hung from its top. Bending over in the saddle, he saw that it was the severed head of a man. The long hair fluttered across the distorted face. A pair of cut-off hands was nailed to the stake, directly below the head. Shak­ing his head perplexedly, the judge pressed his horse on.

As he arrived in front of the high gatehouse with its solid, iron-bound double door, it struck him that the place looked . like a small fort rather than a country house. The high crenelated walls sloping down to a broad base seemed un­usually heavy, and there was not a single window in sight.

Just when he was about to knock on the gate with the butt of his riding-whip, it swung open slowly. An old peas­ant motioned him to enter a spacious, semi-dark yard, paved with cobblestones, and as the judge jumped down from his horse, he heard the grating sound of the cross-bar of the gate being pushed back into its place.

A gaunt man in a long blue gown and a small skull-cap on his head came rushing towards him. Thrusting his lean face close to that of the judge he panted:

'Saw you from the watchtower! Shouted at once at the gatekeeper to open up. Glad they didn't overtake you!'

He had an intelligent face, adorned by a ragged moustache and a short goatee. The judge put him in his early forties. The man took a quick look at Judge Dee's bedraggled ap­pearance, and resumed:

'You have a long journey behind you, evidently! My name is Liao, by the way. I am the steward here, you see.' Now that he had regained his breath, he spoke with a pleasant voice. He seemed a well-educated gentleman.

'My name is Dee. I am a magistrate from up north, on my way to the capital.'

'Good Heavens, a magistrate! I must inform Mr Min. At once!'

The gaunt man ran to the main building in the rear of the yard, agitatedly swinging his arms. The flapping sleeves reminded the judge of a frightened chicken. He now became conscious of a low murmur of voices. It came from the out­houses to the left and right of the courtyard. A few dozen men and women were squatting under the eaves and among the pillars there. Behind them stood piles of large bundles, wrapped in blue cloth and fastened by thick straw ropes. By the nearest pillar sat a peasant woman suckling a small child, half covered by her ragged cloak. Over the low wall came the neighing of horses. He thought he had better take his horse there, for it was wet and tired. When he led it to the narrow doorway in the corner, the murmur of voices ceased abruptly.

The walled-in enclosure proved to be indeed the stable yard. Half a dozen grown-up boys were busying themselves there about a few large, brightly-coloured kites. One of them looked up excitedly at the red kite that flew high in the grey sky, its long string taut in the strong wind. Judge Dee asked the tallest boy to rub down and feed his horse. He patted its neck, then walked back to the courtyard.

A short, portly gentleman wearing a thick robe of grey wool and a flat cap of the same material came rushing down the broad steps of the three-storied main building.

'How did you get through, magistrate?' he asked, excit­edly.

Judge Dee raised his eyebrows at the abrupt question.

'On my horse,' he replied curtly.

'But what about the Flying Tigers?'

'I met no tigers, flying or otherwise. Would you kindly explain what you ...'

The judge broke off in mid-sentence as a tall, broad-shoul­dered man, dressed in a long fur coat, brushed past the portly gentleman. He set his square cap right and asked politely:

'Are you travelling all alone, sir?'

'No, I have sixty soldiers with me. They ...'

'Heaven be praised!' the fat man exclaimed. 'We are saved!'

'Where are they?' the tall man asked eagerly.

'At the bridgehead, on the other side of the mountain range. The bridge over the gap there broke down just after I had crossed it. My men will be here as soon as it has been repaired.'

The fat man threw up his arms in despair.

'Ever seen such a fool?' he asked his companion angrily.

'Look here, you!' the judge snapped. 'You shan't call me names! Are you the master of this house? I want shelter for the night.'

'Shelter? Here?' the other scoffed.

'Calm yourself, Mr Min!' the tall man said sharply. And, to the judge: 'I hope you'll excuse our bad manners, sir. But we are in a most awful predicament. This gentleman is Mr Min Kwo-tai, the younger brother of the landowner, who is gravely ill. Mr Min came here yesterday, to be on hand if his brother's illness should take a turn for the worse. I am Yen Yuan, the bailiff of the Min estate. Shall we take our guest inside, Mr Min?'

Without waiting for the other's assent, he led Judge Dee up the stone steps. They entered a cavernous, windowless hall, lit by a huge open fire that blazed up in a square hole in the centre of the bare, stoneflagged floor. It was sparsely furnished with a few large, well-worn pieces: two broad black-wood cupboards and a high-backed bench against the side wall, and a thick-legged table of carved ebony in the rear. These solid antique pieces went well with the heavy, smoke-blackened rafters of the low ceiling. The plastered walls were bare. Evidently the arrangements of the hall had not been interfered with for a great many years. There was the comfortable atmosphere of rustic simplicity, typical of the old-style country house.

While crossing the hall to the table at the back, the judge noticed that the house was built on two different levels: on either side a few steps led up to small side-rooms, separated from the hall by partition screens of open lattice work. Through the screen on the left the judge saw a high desk, piled with account books. It was apparently the office.

The bailiff lit the candlestick on the table, then offered the judge the capacious armchair behind it. He himself took the chair on the left. Mr Min, who had been muttering to himself all the time, sank down in the smaller armchair on the opposite side. While the bailiff busied himself about the tea tray, Judge Dee unfastened his sword and laid it on the small wall table. He loosened his fur coat and sat down. Leaning back in his chair, he covertly observed the two men, slowly caressing his long sidewhiskers.

Yen Yuan, the bailiff, was not difficult to place. His hand­some, regular face with the jet-black moustache and the neatly trimmed chinbeard, together with his slightly affected accent, indicated the young man about town. Although he could not be much older than twenty-five, there were dark pouches under his heavy-lidded eyes, and deep lines by the side of his loose, rather sensual mouth. The judge wondered idly how a typical gay young blade from the city came to be bailiff on an isolated country estate. When Yen had placed a large tea cup of coarse green earthenware before him, the judge asked casually:

'Are you related to the landowner, Mr Yen?'

To the old mistress, rather, sir. My parents live in the provincial capital. My father sent me here last year, for a change of air. I have been rather ill.'

'Soon we'll be cured of all our ills. For good!' the fat man muttered crossly.

He spoke with a broad country brogue; but his heavy-jowled, haughty face, framed by grey whiskers and a long, straggling beard, seemed to point to a businessman from the city.

'What illness is your brother suffering from, Mr Min?' the judge inquired politely.

'Asthma, aggravated by a heart condition,' Mr Min replied curtly. 'Might live to be a hundred, if he took proper care of himself. The doctors told him to take it easy, for a year or so. But no, he would gad about in the fields, rain or shine! So I had to come rushing out here. Had to leave my tea firm to my assistant, that lazy good-for-nothing! What will be­come of my business, of my family, I ask you? Those blasted Flying Tigers will put us to the sword, every one of us. Con­founded bad luck!'

He set his tea cup down on the table hard, and angrily combed his beard with the short fingers of his podgy hand.

'I presume,' Judge Dee said, 'that you are referring to a band of highwaymen that is infesting this area. For I was waylaid by an armed robber on the road, who wore a cape of tigerskin. He didn't put up much of a fight, though. Well, unfortunately severe floods often tempt vagabonds and other riff-raff to profit from the disrupted traffic and the general confusion and engage in assault and robbery. But you need not worry, Mr Min. My military escort is armed to the teeth, so that those robbers would never dare to raid this country house. My men will be here as soon as the bridge has been repaired.'

'Almighty Heaven!' Mr Min shouted at the bailiff. 'When the bridge is repaired, he says! That's officials for you!' Taking hold of himself with an effort, he asked the judge in a calmer voice:

'Where do you suppose the timber would come from, worthy sir? There isn't a stick of timber to be had for miles around!'

'You are talking nonsense!' the judge said testily. 'What about the oak forest I just passed through?'

The fat man glared at the judge, then he sat back in his chair and asked the bailiff with a resigned air: 'Would you be kind enough to explain the situation, Mr Yen?'

The bailiff took a chopstick from the tea tray. Having laid it on the table in front of the judge, he placed an inverted tea cup on either side of it.

'This chopstick is the Yellow River,' he began. 'It flows here from east to west. This tea cup on the south bank is the fort, the cup on the opposite bank represents this country house.' He dipped his forefinger in the tea, and drew an oval round the latter cup. 'This is the mountain range here, the only tract of elevated ground this side of the river. All the rest of the surrounding country consists of rice fields; they belong to the landowner here, for about six miles north. Well, the river rose till it overflowed the south bank, trans­forming this mountain range into an island. A section of the raised highway north of the range crumbled away, as you saw when you crossed the temporary bridge the militia built over the gap. The ferry on this side was carried away by the current yesterday afternoon; Mr Min and a party of travel­ling merchants were the last to use it, yesterday morning. This country house is the only inhabited place hereabouts. So, you see that we are completely isolated, sir. Heaven only knows when the ferry can be re-installed, and it will take days before they have brought down from up north the timber necessary for repairing the bridge over the gap. There isn't a single tree for miles around north of the gap, as you must have seen for yourself when you came riding south.'

SKETCHMAP OF THE FLOODED AREA

Judge Dee nodded.

'I see that you have a number of refugees here, however,' he remarked. 'Why not select a dozen sturdy peasants from among them, and send them on horseback to the gap? They could fell trees, and ...'

'Didn't you see the severed head on the stake by the road­side when you came up here?' Mr Min interrupted.

'I did. What does that mean?'

'It means,' the portly gentleman replied in a surly voice, 'that those bandits keep a careful watch on us — from then — caves up the mountain slope, behind the house here. The head you saw is that of our groom. We had sent him to the gap, to inform the militia of our predicament. Well, just when he was about to take the highway, six horsemen swooped down on him. They dragged him back here, first cut off his hands and feet, then beheaded him, right in front of our gatehouse.'

'The insolent dogs!' Judge Dee called out angrily. 'How many are they?'

'About a hundred, sir,' the bailiff answered. 'All of them heavily armed, seasoned fighters, and desperate men. They are the remnants of a strong robber band of over three hundred who infested the lonely mountain region in the southern part of the province half a year ago. The army drove them away, but then they began to roam the country­side, burning the farmsteads and killing the inhabitants. Army patrols chased them from one place to another, killing about two-thirds of them. They fled north, and, when the water rose, sought refuge on this deserted mountain range.

'They established themselves in the caves, and posted look­outs on the top of the range, and down at the gap. They had planned to lie low here till the water fell, but when the ferry was carried away, and they did not need to be afraid any longer of being attacked by the soldiers from the fort, they conceived a better plan. Yesterday six of them came to the gate here. They asked for two hundred gold pieces; travel­ling funds, as they chose to call it. They would leave the next morning, they said, on the rafts a few of them are building on the west point of the island. If we refused to pay, they would storm this country house, and put every­one inside to the sword. They must have had a spy among our servants, for the sum they asked for represents just about the amount of cash the landowner usually keeps in his strongbox.'

The bailiff shook his head, cleared his throat and went on: 'My master decided to pay. The bandits said their leader would come personally to fetch the gold. Mr Min and I went to my master's room, he gave us the key, and we opened the strongbox. It was empty. The gold had been stolen. Since one of the maidservants absconded that same night, we sus­pect that it was she who stole the gold.'

'When we told the leader of the Flying Tigers that the gold was gone, he flew into an awful rage. He accused us of trying to gain time by base trickery, and said that if the gold was not brought to his cave before nightfall today, he would come down with his men to take it himself, and kill all of us. In despair we sent out the groom to contact the militia at the gap. And you have just heard what they did to him.'

'To think that the fortress is just across the river!' the judge muttered. 'They have more than a thousand soldiers there!'

'Not to speak of several hundred heavily armed river police, who congregated there when they had to evacuate the traffic control stations up river,' Yen remarked. 'But how can we establish contact with the fortress?'

'What about a signal fire?' the judge asked. 'If the men in the fortress saw that, they ...'

'They wouldn't come even if this whole house was afire,' Mr Min said, glaring angrily at the judge.

'That's true, sir,' the bailiff said quickly. 'A large war-junk could eventually get across the swollen river, but it would be a major undertaking, and not without risk. First they would have to tug the empty junk for a good distance up river. After the soldiers had gone on board it would then have to be rowed across in a slow curve, and beached in a suitable place on the bank down here — an operation calling for very superior navigation. The commandant of the fort would risk it, of course, if he knew that the notorious Flying Tigers are marooned here — a Heaven-sent chance for exterm­inating that band of outlaws once and for all. The bandits realize that, of course; that's why they keep quiet. When the ferry was still being operated, they let a group of merchants going south pass unmolested.'

'I must admit,' the judge said, nodding slowly, 'that the situation is far from cheerful, to say the least.'

'I am glad you see that now, magistrate,' Mr Min re­marked sourly.

'However,' Judge Dee resumed, 'this country house is built like a small fortress. If you issued arms to the refugees, we could ...'

'Of course we too have thought of that,' Mr Min inter­rupted. 'Want a list of the arms at our disposal? Two rusty spears, four hunting bows with a dozen arrows, and three swords. I beg you pardon, four swords, counting yours on the wall table there.'

'Until about a hundred years ago,' the bailiff said, 'our family kept a well-stocked armoury here, and they main­tained twenty or so braves on the premises, as a permanent bodyguard. But all those costly precautionary measures were of course dropped after the fortress had been built. So you see, magistrate, that ...'

He looked round. The gaunt steward was coming up to their table with his long stride.

'I told the gatekeeper to take over from me in the watch­tower, sir,' he addressed Mr Min respectfully. 'The cook came to tell me that the rice gruel for the refugees is ready.'

'Forty-six extra mouths to fill,' Mr Min informed the judge gloomily. 'I counted them myself, man, woman and child.' He heaved a deep sigh and added in a resigned voice: 'All right, let's go.'

'Shouldn't we show the magistrate a room first, sir?' the bailiff asked. 'He'll be eager to change.'

Mr Min hesitated for one brief moment before he replied, curtly:

'My brother will have to decide that. He is the master here.' Turning to the judge, he went on: 'If you'll excuse us for a while, sir, I'll have to attend to the feeding of the refugees, with Yen and Liao. All the servants here fled when they heard about the arrival of the bandits, you see. We have only the gatekeeper, and the old couple I brought with me from the city. So you'll understand that we can't offer you the hospitality your rank entitles you to, and ...'

'Of course!' the judge interrupted hastily. 'Don't bother about me! I shall sleep on that bench down there against the wall, and I ...'

'My brother shall decide,' Mr Min repeated firmly. He rose and left the hall, followed by Yen and the steward.

Judge Dee poured himself another cup of tea. Upon his arrival he had said he was a magistrate, so as not to embar­rass his unseen host; even the biggest landowner would have been at a loss how to entertain properly a metropolitan official of his present high rank. Now that he had learned the awkward situation here, he was all the more glad that he had not revealed his true status.

He emptied his cup, got up and walked to the door. Stand­ing at the head of the steps, he looked out at the yard, which was now lit by a number of smoking torches. The bailiff and the steward stood by a huge iron cauldron, busily ladling the gruel into the bowls of the people filing past. Mr Min was supervising them, from time to time gruffly warning the peasants not to push one another. Half of them were women and children, some of the latter mere infants. It would never do to let these people fall into the hands of the bandits. The Flying Tigers would slay the men, elderly women and in­fants on the spot, and take the young boys and girls away to be sold as slaves. He had to do something. Angrily tugging at his beard, he reflected bitterly how relative worldly power was. He, the Lord Chief Justice of the Empire, and President of the Metropolitan Court, had, through the force of circum­stances, suddenly been reduced to a helpless traveller!

He turned on his heels and crossed the hall to the small office on the left. After he had seated himself in the capacious armchair, he folded his arms in his wide sleeves and looked up at the faded landscape painting that decorated the wall opposite. It was flanked by two long and narrow scrolls, in­scribed with classical quotations, in bold, original calligraphy. The one on the right read:

Above, the Sovereign rules the realm, in accordance with the Mandate of Heaven.

The other one bore the parallel line:

' Below, the peasants are the foundation of the State, they till the land in accordance with the seasons.

Judge Dee nodded approvingly. He remained sitting there for some time, staring straight ahead. Suddenly he sat up, took his hands from his sleeves and pulled the candle closer. He tilted the porcelain water-container, pouring a splash of water on the flat piece of slate that apparently served as an ink slab. He selected a stick of ink from the lacquer box, and rubbed off a large quantity of thick, jet-black ink, all the while going over in his mind what he should write. Then he took a few sheets of the heavy, home-made rag-paper that was lying close by the account books, chose a writing brush and wrote out in his bold calligraphy an official communi­cation. When he had finished, he copied out the text a number of times. 'Like writing out lines at school!' he mut­tered with a wan smile. After he had impressed on each sheet the official seal he always carried suspended by a silk cord on his belt, he rolled the papers up and put them into his sleeve.

Leaning back in his chair, he calculated the chances of success. His entire body was stiff from the long ride and his back was aching, but his mind was alert. All of a sudden he realized that now, for the first time since he had left Pei-chow, his mental apathy had dropped away from him. He had been a fool to give himself over to morose brooding. He must take action. That is what the dear dead he had left in Pei-chow, his faithful old adviser Hoong and she of the Medicine Hill, expected from him. He must evolve other plans for saving the people here in the country house. If his main scheme should fail, he could always give himself up to the bandits, reveal his true identity and promise them a ran­som several times the two hundred gold pieces they asked the landowner for. It implied that he would have to pass an un­comfortable time as hostage, with the possibility that they would cut off his ears or fingers to speed up negotiations. However, he knew how to handle those scoundrels. Anyway it was the surest way to a complete success. He got up and walked out into the cold yard again.

The refugees were busy gobbling their gruel. He walked about among them till he found the youngster to whom he had entrusted his horse. Seeing that the boy had just finished his bowl, he asked him to show him the stables.

In the exposed enclosure the blast of the north wind struck them full in the face. No one was about there. He took the youngster into a corner under the lee of the wall, and had a long conversation with him. Finally he asked him a ques­tion, and, as the youngster nodded eagerly, the judge gave him the rolled up papers. He patted the boy on his back and said: 'I put my trust in you!' Then he walked back to the courtyard.

Mr Min was standing below the stairs of the main build­ing. 'I have been looking for you everywhere!' he told the judge gruffly. 'My brother asks you to come up now, before we take our evening rice.'

Min took him inside and up a broad staircase next to the entrance of the hall, to a large, dimly-lit landing on the second floor. There were several doors there, presumably of the family quarters. Mr Min knocked softly on the door on the left. It was opened a crack, and the wrinkled face of an old woman appeared. Min whispered a few words to her. After a while the door was opened wide. Min motioned the judge to follow him inside.

The cloying smell of medicinal herbs hung heavily in the overheated room. It came from a steaming jar that stood upon the large bronze brazier on the floor, in the farthest corner. The brazier was heaped with glowing coals. The simply furnished room was brilliantly lit by two tall brass candelabra on the side table. The back wall was taken up entirely by an enormous canopied bedstead of intricately carved ebony, its heavy brocade curtains drawn apart. Mr Min bade the judge sit down in the armchair at the head of the bed; he himself took the low footstool next to it. The old woman stood herself at the foot, her hands folded in the long sleeves of her dark-grey robe.

Judge Dee looked at the old man who was watching him from his raised pillow with lack-lustre, red-rimmed eyes. They seemed abnormally large in the hollow, deeply lined face. Untidy strands of grey hair stuck to his high, moist forehead, a straggling grey moustache hung over the thin, tightly compressed mouth. A tangled white beard lay on the thick silken coverlet.

'This gentleman is Magistrate Dee, elder brother,' Mr Min spoke softly. 'He was on his way south, to the capital, but was caught by the flood. He ...'

'I saw it, saw it in the almanac!' the old landowner sud­denly said in a high-pitched, quavering voice. 'When the Ninth Constellation crosses the Sign of the Tiger, it means dire disaster. The almanac says so, very clearly. It means disaster, and violence. Violent death.' He closed his eyes, breathing heavily. After a while he went on, his eyes still closed: 'What was it again, the last time that the Sign of the Tiger got crossed? Yes, I was twelve then. Had just started to ride on horseback, I had. The water rose and rose, it came up to the steps of our gatehouse. I saw with my own eyes how ...' He was interrupted by a racking cough that shook his thin shoulders. The old woman quickly stepped up to the bed, and made her husband drink from a large porcelain bowl.

When the cough had subsided, Mr Min resumed:

'Magistrate Dee has to stay here, elder brother. I was thinking that the side room downstairs might ...'

Suddenly the old man opened his eyes. Fixing the judge with a brooding stare, he mumbled:

'It all fits. Exactly. The Sign of the Tiger. The Hying Tigers have come, the flood has come, I have fallen ill, and Kee-yu is dead. We shan't be able to bury her, even ...' He made an ineffectual effort to raise himself to a sitting posi­tion; claw-like hands came out from under the coverlet. Sinking back against the pillow, he croaked at Mr Min: 'They will hack her dead body to pieces, the devils, You must try to ...' He choked. His wife hastily laid her arm round his shoulders. The old man's eyes closed again.

'Kee-yu was my brother's daughter,' Mr Min told the judge in a hurried whisper. 'She was only nineteen, a very gifted girl. But she suffered from bad health. Weak heart, you know. All this excitement was too much for her. Last night, just before dinner, she died. A sudden heart attack. My brother was very fond of her. The sad news caused a serious relapse, he ...' He let the sentence trail off.

The judge nodded absent-mindedly. He had been looking at the high cupboard against the side wall. By its side stood the usual pile of four clothes boxes, one for each season, then a large iron box, its lid secured by a heavy copper padlock. As he turned his head, he found the sick man staring at him. There was a crafty gleam now in the large eyes. His wife had gone to the brazier in the corner.

'Yes, that's where the gold was!' the old man cackled with a broad grin. 'Forty shining gold bars, magistrate! The value of two hundred gold pieces!'

'Aster stole it, the lewd slut!' a dry, cracked voice spoke up behind the judge. It was the old woman. She was fixing the sick man with a malevolent stare.

Aster was the young maidservant,' Min said to the judge with an embarrassed air. 'She disappeared last night. Joined the bandits.'

'Wanted to bed with those beasts. With every single one of them,' the old woman rasped. 'Then clear out. With the gold.'

The judge got up and walked over to the strongbox. He examined it curiously.

'The lock hasn't been forced,' he remarked.

'She had the key, of course!' the old woman snapped.

The thin hand of the old man clutched at her sleeve. He gave her an imploring look. He wanted to speak but only incoherent sounds came from his twitching mouth. Suddenly tears came trickling down his hollow cheeks.

'No, she didn't take it! You must believe me!' he said, sobbing. 'How could I, sick as I am ... Nobody pities me, nobody!' His wife bent over him and wiped his nose and mouth with a handkerchief. The judge averted his eyes and bent again over the strongbox. It was covered with thick iron plates, and there was not a single scratch on the solid padlock. When he turned to the bed, the old man had re­gained his composure. He said dully to the judge:

'Only I, my wife and my daughter knew where the key was. Nobody else.' Slowly a sly smile curved his thin, blood­less lips. He stretched out his right hand and felt with thin, spidery fingers along the edge of the bedstead. The wood was carved into an intricate motif of flowers.

Aster was hanging about here all the time, especially when you had fever!' the old woman said venomously. 'You showed it to her without even knowing it, you!'

The old man chuckled. His thin fingers had closed round a flowerbud carved in the wood. There was a click and a small panel in the edge of the bed opened. In the shallow cavity lay a large copper key. Giggling with childish delight, he made the panel open and close several times in succession.

'A strapping, comely wench!' he cackled. 'Best peasant stock.' A little saliva came dripping from the corner of his mouth.

'You ought to have been thinking about your daughter's marriage, instead of about that hussy!' his wife remarked.

'Oh yes, my dear daughter!' the landowner said, sud­denly serious again. 'My dear, so very clever daughter!'

'It was I who arranged everything with the Liang family, it was I who selected the trousseau!' the old woman said in a querulous voice. 'While you, behind my back ...'

'I mustn't take too much of your time,' the judge inter­rupted her. He motioned Mr Min to rise.

'Wait,' the sick man shouted all of a sudden. He regarded the judge with eyes that now were hard and wary. Then he said in a steady voice: 'You will stay in Kee-yu's room, magistrate.'

He heaved a deep sigh and closed his eyes again.

As Mr Min took the judge to the door, the old woman squatted down by the brazier and begun to stir the coals with a pair of copper tongs, muttering angrily.

'Your brother is very ill,' the judge remarked to Mr Min while they were descending the staircase.

'He is indeed. But we'll all be dead. Soon. Kee-yu was lucky, she died in peace.'

'Just before her marriage, apparently.'

'Yes, she had been engaged to young Liang, the eldest son of the owner of the large estate beyond the fort, for quite some time. They were to be married next month. Fine young fellow. Not too handsome, but of a staunch character. I met him in the city once, with his father. And now we can't even notify them that she's dead.'

'Where did you put her body?'

'In a temporary coffin, in the Buddhist house chapel. Be­hind the hall.' Arrived at the bottom of the stairs, Min ex­claimed: 'Ha, I see that Yen and Liao are waiting for us already. You don't want to go up to your room first, I sup­pose? No need to, you know. There's a washroom in the out­house, just outside the door here'

Upon re-entering the hall Judge Dee saw that Min, Yen and Liao had seated themselves at the large table in the rear. Now it bore four large earthenware bowls of rice, four platters of pickled vegetables, and one of salted fish.

'Please excuse the poor fare!' Mr Min said, as a half­hearted attempt at observing the customary amenities due to a guest. Raising his chopsticks as the sign to begin, he grumbled: 'Stocks are running low. My brother ought to have seen to it that. ...' He shook his head and buried his face in his rice bowl.

They ate in silence for a while. The judge was hungry, and he found the simple, solid food much to his taste. The bailiff rose and fetched from the wall table a brown stone jar and four small porcelain cups. As he was pouring the warm wine, the steward gave him an astonished look. He said crossly:

'So it was you who got that jar out, Yen! How can you possibly think of wine, the night after Miss Kee-yu died; and in our present situation too!'

'Why should we let those beastly bandits swill our wine?' the bailiff asked indifferently. 'The best vintage too! You don't object, do you, Mr Min?'

'Go ahead, go ahead!' the fat man mumbled with his mouth full.

The steward bent his head. The judge noticed that the man's hands were trembling. He sipped from the wine and found it of superior quality.

The steward suddenly put his chopsticks down. Darting a worried glance at the judge he said timidly:

'As a magistrate you must have dealt often with robbers and bandits and so on, sir. Couldn't we persuade them to accept a money draft? The landowner has excellent relations with two banking houses in the city and ...'

'I have never yet heard of bandits accepting anything but cash,' the judge said dryly. The wine had warmed him, and his boots had dried. He rose and took off his fur coat. Under­neath he wore a long travelling robe of padded brown cotton, fastened by a broad sash of black silk, wound several times round his waist. As he was laying his fur coat on the wall table he said: 'We shouldn't be too pessimistic about all this, you know! I see more than one possibility of extricating our­selves from our predicament.'

He sat down again and pushed his fur cap back from his brow. Then he put his forearms on the table and resumed, looking levelly at his three companions:

'The bandits are, admittedly, in an ugly mood, because they are convinced your story about the stolen money was a trick. And they are pressed for time, because they must be off on their rafts before the flood subsides. They are afraid of the soldiers in the fort, and frightened men are hard to deal with. You need not expect them to show us any mercy. There's no use in parleying with them either, unless we establish our­selves in a good bargaining position first. I suppose that your tenant farmers do a lot of fishing in the river, in summer?' As the bailiff and the steward nodded, the judge went on: 'Good. I expect that the bandits will attack us early in the morning. Tonight, choose a couple of sturdy farmhands who know about fishing, issue a large drag-net to them, and let them climb on this side of the roof of the gatehouse. No one should know about this, because the bandits may well have a spy among the refugees. When the bandits arrive I shall go outside and talk to them. I know how to handle their kind. I shall tell their leader that we are well-armed, but that we shan't put up any resistance if they spare our lives. They may enter the house, and collect everything they want, in­cluding a lot of gold and silver finery. They'll accept the proposal, of course. For that will enable them to plunder the house leisurely, and kill us afterwards. However, as soon as the leader and his bodyguards have passed through the gate, our men on the roof will drop the net over them, men and horses, while we close the gates in the face of the rest of the bandits. The leader and his bodyguards will be heavily armed, but when they are in the net we shall disable them easily enough by means of a few blows with threshing flails. Then we'll have hostages, and we can start upon serious negotia­tions.'

'That isn't such a bad idea,' Mr Min said, nodding slowly.

The steward's face had lit up. But the bailiff pursed his lips and said worriedly:

'Far too risky! If there should be a hitch, the scoundrels won't put us to death quickly. They'll torture us!'

Disregarding the frightened exclamations of Min and Liao, the judge said firmly:

'If anything goes wrong, you just close the gate behind me. I can look after myself.' He added with a wry smile: 'I was born under the Sign of the Tiger, you know!'

Mr Min bestowed a thoughtful look on him. After a while he said:

'All right. I'll see to it that the trap is laid. You'll help me, Liao.' He rose briskly and asked: 'Will you see the magis­trate up to his room, Yen? I shall go to the watchtower, presently, to take my turn.' To the judge he added: 'We take turns of three hours, you see, watching for an unexpected move of those scoundrels. All the night through.'

'I'll join you, of course,' the judge said. 'Shall I take the watch after you, Mr Min?'

Mr Min protested that they could never accept that, but Judge Dee insisted, and finally it was agreed that the judge should go to the watchtower from midnight to three o'clock. Yen would then take over from him till dawn.

Mr Min and the steward left for the store-room where the fishing nets were kept. The judge laid his fur coat over his shoulder, took up his sword and followed Yen to the stairs. The bailiff took him up to the landing, then they climbed a narrow, creaking staircase in the corner that led up to the third floor. There the judge saw only a passageway ending in a door of solid wooden boards.

Yen halted and said contritely:

'I do regret that the master assigned this room to you, sir. I hope you don't mind sleeping in a room where only last night ... I could easily find you a room downstairs, the others need not know that ...'

'This room will do,' the judge cut him short.

The bailiff opened the door and led him inside a dark, ice-cold room. While lighting the candle on the side table, he resumed:

'Well, it's the best furnished room in the house, of course. Miss Kee-yu was a girl of elegant taste, sir. As you can see for yourself.'

He indicated the furnishings of the spacious room with a sweeping gesture. Pointing at the broad sliding doors that took up most of the wall opposite, he added: 'Outside is a balcony that runs along the entire breadth of this top floor. Miss Kee-yu used to sit there on summer nights, enjoying the moon over the mountains.'

'Was she all alone up here?'

'Yes, there are no other rooms on this floor. Originally it was a store-room, I heard. But Miss Kee-yu liked the view and the quiet up here, and the master gave it to her. Al­though properly she should have stayed in the women's quarters, of course, in the east wing of the compound. Well, I'll send Mr Min's old servant up with a tea-basket. Have a good rest, sir! I shall come and fetch you at midnight.'

When the bailiff had closed the door behind him, Judge Dee put on his fur coat again, for it was bitterly cold in the room, and a nasty draught was coming through the sliding doors. He laid his sword on the rosewood table in the centre of the thick-piled blue carpet, then leisurely surveyed the room. In the corner to the right of the entrance stood a narrow couch, a thin gauze curtain suspended on its four rosewood posts. Next to it was the customary pile of four clothes boxes of red lacquered leather, and close by the slid­ing doors a dressing-table, with a row of small powder boxes arranged under the round mirror of polished silver. To the left of the entrance stood a high, oblong music table, with a seven-stringed lute lying ready on it, then an elegant book-rack of polished spotted bamboo. In the corner by the slid­ing doors stood a writing-desk of carved ebony. The judge walked up to it for a closer look at the painting on the wall there. It represented a branch of plum blossoms, a fine specimen of the work of a well-known former artist. He noticed that the ink slab, the brush holder, the paperweight and all the other writing implements on the desk were valuable antiques, evidently selected with loving care. The room bore the stamp of a well-defined personality: an edu­cated, refined girl of fastidious taste.

He sat down on the bamboo chair at the centre table, but got up again just in time as the fragile seat began to collapse. The dead girl must have been of slight build. He pulled the heavy ebony seat belonging to the music table up, and sat on that. Stretching his stiff legs, he listened for a while to the howling of the wind round the roof.

Slowly smoothing down his long beard, the judge tried to bring some order to the confused thoughts his brain was teeming with. He was not at all sure that the stratagem of catching the bandit leader by means of the fishing nets would succeed. He had made the proposal mainly in order to en­courage old Mr Min, and to rouse him from his fatalistic lethargy. Nor was he sure that the other scheme he had set into motion would be successful. The surest method was still for him to parley with the bandits personally. The govern­ment was averse to granting a pardon to bandits in order to obtain the release of a captured official. And quite correctly too, for the procedure damaged their prestige, and encouraged other miscreants to try the same expedient. Yet they would perhaps make an exception in his case, because of his present high rank. And if he came through the experiment alive, he would see to it that the scoundrels got their deserts, in the end. Emboldened by their success, they would certainly again commit acts of violence, and then he would pounce on them. For a pardon covered only past crimes.

He idly wondered who could have stolen the landowner's gold. The embarrassing scene he had witnessed in the sick man's bedroom had shown that the maid had apparently had opportunities for learning the secret of the key's hiding place. But he had perceived undercurrents, the real meaning of which was beyond him. The old man was said to have been very fond of his daughter. Yet he had referred to her once with an evident sneer. And why had he insisted that he, the judge, should stay in the dead girl's room?

He was startled from his musings by a knock on the door. A bent old man clad in a long blue gown of cheap cotton came in. He silently put a padded tea-basket at Judge Dee's elbow, then placed a wooden water bucket by the dressing-table. When he made for the door again the judge motioned him to wait. He asked:

'Was Miss Kee-yu all alone here when she was seized by a heart attack?'

'Yes, sir.' The greybeard started on a long story in some broad dialect that the judge could not follow.

'Speak slowly, man!' he interrupted him peevishly.

'I said that she was lying on the bed there, didn't I?' the old servant asked surlily. 'All dressed up for dinner, she was, in a white gown of thick silk, the best quality. Must have cost a pretty penny, I thought. But she didn't come down for dinner. Mr Yen went up and knocked. She doesn't answer. So Mr Yen goes down again and calls the master and the master calls me. The master and me come up here, and there she's lying on that bed there, as I told you. She's asleep, we think. But no, when the master calls her she says noth­ing. The master bends over her, he feels her pulse, he lifts her eyelids. "It's her heart that got her," he says, very pale. "Call your wife!" I fetch my old woman and a bamboo stretcher and we carry her down, to the chapel. Quite some weight it was, I tell you! The master calls Mr Liao the steward to help us getting her into a coffin. But the fool is all to pieces over the news, and no use whatsoever. So I say don't bother, we'll manage. And that is what we did.'

'I see,' the judge said. 'Sad affair.'

'Not nearly as sad as coming down here all the way from the city, sir, just to be chopped up by a gang of robbers. Well, I have had a long life and never a day in want, and my sons and daughters have grown up and married, so what should an old body complain of? I always say ...'

His voice was drowned in the rattling of a torrential rain that suddenly came down on the rooftiles.

'As if we were needing more water still!' the greybeard grumbled and went out.

The judge reflected that, if this downpour continued, it would make the water rise still higher. On the other hand, it would prevent the Flying Tigers from launching a night-attack. With a sigh he went to the dressing-table, and washed his face and hands. Then he pulled out the upper drawer, and rummaged among the various toilet articles for a comb to do his beard and whiskers. He was astonished to see there a small brocade roll. It seemed a strange place to store away a manuscript or a painting. He untied the fastening band and unrolled the scroll. It was an excellent miniature port­rait of a young girl. He was just going to roll it up again when his eye fell on the inscription by its side. It read: 'For my daughter Kee-yu, on the occasion of her reaching the age of two times eight.' So this was the dead girl whose room he was occupying now! As she had looked three years ago, at least. He took the painting over to the table, and studied it intently.

The portrait was done from the waist upward, the face turned three-quarters to the observer. She was dressed in a lilac robe with a pattern of plum-blossoms, and in her slender right hand she was carrying a twig of those flowers. The glossy black hair was combed back straight from her forehead, and gathered in a coil in the neck. Her narrow sloping shoul­ders suggested a thin figure, and there was the suspicion of a slightly bent back. She had a striking face, not beautiful by commonly accepted standards, but strangely fascinating. The brow was a trifle too high, the nose well-shaped but too pronouncedly aquiline, while the pallor of the hollow cheeks and the bloodless thin lips pointed to protracted ill health. It was the intense, compelling stare of the large, intelligent eyes that gave her that strange charm. Strange because there was a possessive, almost hungry gleam in her look that was vaguely disturbing.

The painter must have been no mean artist. He had indeed given the portrait so much life that the judge suddenly felt embarrassed, as if he were in the bedroom of a girl still alive, and who might enter her room at any moment.

Annoyed with himself, the judge put the portrait down. He listened for a while to the clattering rain, trying to dis­cover for himself why exactly the girl's eyes had disturbed him. His eye fell on the bookrack. He quickly got up and went to it. He laid aside at once the standard works one usually finds in a young daughter's room, such as The Per­fect Housewife, or Pattern of Ladylike Behaviour. The col­lected works of four romantic poets interested him more, for the dog-eared leaves proved that she had eagerly read those poems. Just as he was about to put the volumes back, he checked himself and had a second look at the names of the poets. Yes, all four of them had committed suicide. Pensively tugging at his moustache, he tried to digest the possible meaning of this discovery. Then he inspected the rest of the books. An expression of perplexity came over his face. They were all Taoist works, dealing with the dietary and other disciplines for curing illness and prolonging life, and with alchemist experiments for preparing the Elixir of Longevity. He went back to the table and again studied the portrait, holding it close by the candle.

Now he understood. Suffering from a chronic heart disease, the poor girl had been obsessed by the fear of dying young. Of dying before she had really lived. That morbid fear had made her try to find solace in the works of those four disillusioned, world-weary poets. Hers were hungry eyes, hungry for life. A hunger so strong that it pulled the observer towards her, as it were, in a desperate desire to partake of his life force. He now understood also why she kept the portrait in the drawer of her dressing-table: in order to compare it daily with her reflection in the mirror, searching for new signs of her deteriorating health. A pathetic girl.

Her predilection for the plum-blossom motif was only natural. The small white flowers, blossoming forth from an old and gnarled, seemingly dead branch, were the traditional symbol of spring, when the life force that had lain dormant during the winter came forth again in full bloom. He walked over to the pile of clothes boxes, and opened the upper one. Nearly all the neatly folded robes and dresses had an inwoven or embroidered plum-blossom pattern.

He poured himself a cup of tea and drank it eagerly. Then he took off his cap and placed it on the table, by his sword. He stepped out of his boots and stretched himself out on the bed, still dressed in his fur coat and all his other clothes. Listening to the monotonous sound of the rain, he tried to sleep, but the portrait of the dead girl was constantly before his mind's eye.

'I admit these blossoms are just a bit common, but why shouldn't a person like them, pray?'

Startled, he opened his eyes and raised himself to a sitting position. In the flickering light of the candle he saw that he was all alone in the room. The coy voice had sounded in his dream. It was exactly the question the girl seemed to be ask­ing the observer of her portrait. He resolutely closed his eyes again and abandoned himself to the soothing sound of the rain. Soon his fatigue asserted itself and he fell into a dream­less sleep.

He was awakened by Yen shaking his shoulder. As he stepped down from the bed he noticed that the sound of the rain had ceased.

'When did it stop raining?' he asked the bailiff while he was adjusting his cap.

'About half an hour ago, sir. There's only a drizzle now. Just before I left the watchtower, I saw light in the caves of the bandits. Don't know what they are at.'

He took the judge down to the hall on the ground floor, lighting the way by a small storm lantern, covered with oil paper. The large open fire had died down to glowing embers, but it was still agreeably warm in the hall.

The pitch-dark, wet courtyard was by contrast even more cold and desolate. Passing close by the gatehouse, the bailiff held up his lantern, and let its light fall on three men, huddled against the wall. 'They have put a dragnet ready on the roof, sir,' he said in a whisper. 'Those three fellows are experienced fishermen, and they can be up on the roof in a trice.'

The judge nodded. He noticed that the wind was dying down.

Keeping close behind Yen, he climbed the narrow, slippery flight of stone steps that led up to the top of the outer wall. Then he followed the bailiff along the battlements to the watch turret built on the south-east corner. A creaking step-ladder led up to the top, where he saw a small platform sur­rounded by a solid balustrade of heavy logs. The low-hanging eaves of the pointed roof offered additional protection against wind and rain, and against the arrows of an eventual enemy.

'If you sit on this bench here, sir, you are well protected, and you can yet keep an eye on the surrounding country.' Yen put the lantern down on the floor-boards, but he made no move to take his leave.

'You had better have a few hours' rest before taking over the watch from me,' the judge said.

'I don't feel tired at all, sir. It's the excitement, I suppose. Mind if I keep you company a bit?'

'Not at all.' The judge pointed at the bench, and Yen sat down by his side.

'Now you can see them quite clearly, sir! Look, they have lighted a big fire, in front of the largest cave. What would they be doing?'

Judge Dee peered at the mountain slope.

'Heaven knows,' he said with a shrug. 'Probably want to warm themselves.' He looked round in a southerly direction. No light was glimmering in the darkness there, and the only sound heard was the low rumble of the river. He pulled the fur coat closer. Although the wind had abated, it was still very cold up there. Shivering, he said:

'When I was visiting the old landlord I noticed that his mind was wandering now and then. But apart from that he seems to me a shrewd old gentleman.'

'As shrewd as they make them! He is a stern man, but just and considerate, always mindful of the needs of his tenants. No wonder that he is very popular hereabouts. Until he fell ill, I had an easy job here, you know. Mainly making the rounds of the farms now and then to collect the rent and to look into complaints. Life was rather dull — till the flood came, that is! Heavens, wasn't it different, in the city! Do you know our provincial capital, sir?'

'Only passed through there, once or twice. A lively city.'

'Lively is the word! But expensive, too! You need money to go places there, lots of it. And mine is the less favoured branch of the family, you see. My father owns a small tea-shop, it brings in enough for our daily needs, but that's all. The money is here, has been here for many generations. The old man has a vast amount of gold salted away in the city. Not to speak of his investments up-country.'

'Who inherits all that if the old gentleman should die?'

'Now that Miss Kee-yu is dead, it all goes to his younger brother, Mr Min. And the fellow has already more than he can use! But he doesn't mind getting more. Not he!'

After a brief pause the judge asked casually:

'Were you present when they found her dead body?'

'Eh? Present? No, I wasn't. But it was I who discovered that something was wrong. Miss Kee-yu had been rather depressed in the afternoon, it seems, just like all of us, and the old lady said that she went upstairs earlier than usual. When she did not appear in the old lady's quarters for the evening rice, and didn't answer when I went up and knocked on her door, I went down to warn Mr Min. The old fellow went up with his servant, and they found her lying on her bed, fully dressed. Dead.'

'Was there no possibility of her having committed suicide?'

'Suicide? Heavens no! Old Mr Min knows a lot about medicine, he saw at once that she had died from a heart attack. While she was taking a nap, before dinner. I informed the old master and his wife. Not a pleasant task, I assure you! The old man had another bad attack, and his wife had the devil of a time to calm him down again. Well, in the meantime Mr Min had the body placed in the spare coffin, in the house chapel. And that was that.'

'I see,' Judge Dee said. 'When I paid my visit to the land­owner, his wife said something about a maid called Aster. She suggested that Aster had known the secret hiding place of the gold, and that she had absconded with it. I didn't quite understand what it was all about.'

'Well, it does seem the most likely explanation of the dis­appearance of the gold, sir. It was kept in a strongbox in the master's bedroom, forty shining gold bars, equalling two hundred gold pieces. The key was hidden in a secret panel, in the master's bedstead. Only he and his wife knew the place. Now, Aster is an uneducated girl, but a pretty piece of goods, and as shrewd as some of those peasant girls are. She made up to the old man, let him fondle her a bit now and then, I suppose, hoping to be installed as a concubine, sooner or later.'

Yen made a face, and resumed: 'Anyway, he showed her where he kept the key, or talked about it when he was deli­rious with fever. When the bandits arrived, Aster thought that one bird in the hand is better than two in the bush, took the gold and ran off. She buried the gold bars under a tree or under a rock, then went to the bandits. Those dogs would welcome a nice strapping wench, of course. Later on she could run off, collect the gold, and marry a wealthy shopkeeper in the next province. Not a bad deal, if you come to think of it! Well, I had better turn in, after all. Do you see that bronze gong hanging from the rafters? Should the bastards come down here, you beat it with the club hanging next to it. That is our alarm signal. I'll be back on time! No, thank you, I don't need the lantern, I know my way about.'

Judge Dee turned the bench round and sat down, his folded arms on the balustrade, facing the dark mountain slope. He knew exactly what the Flying Tigers were at, for he had seen the stakes the tiny black figures in front of the fire were moving about. He had not told Yen Yuan, in order not to frighten him — although the fellow seemed the least disturbed of all the inmates of the country house. The ban­dits were in fact constructing a battering-ram. But he did not think they would attack before dawn unless the sky cleared and the moon came out, of course. He could do nothing but wait.

What the bailiff had just told him about the death of Kee-yu tallied with what Mr Min's old servant had said. Yet he had the uncomfortable feeling that there had been more there than met the eye. The old landowner must have suspected something of that kind; that was the only explanation of the sick man's eagerness to let him, a magistrate, stay in his dead daughter's room. The old man evidently hoped that he, as an experienced criminal investigator, would discover there clues that would throw a new light on her demise.

It was curious that the landowner had quoted the almanac on stellar portents. The almanac was drawn up every year by the Board of Rites, and all passages on the occult mean­ing of the signs appearing in the sky during the coming year were drawn up after a careful study of the Book of Divina­tion. These indications were therefore not to be lightly dis­missed, for they embodied the wisdom of the Ancients. He himself had been born under the Sign of the Tiger. Was it the mystic influence of this animal of the zodiac that had brought him here to this lonely house tonight?

Shaking his head he decided that it was better to leave occult considerations alone, and to concentrate on factors subject to human control. What the old man had said about portents pointing to violent death, could have referred to the impending attack of the Flying Tigers as well as to his daughter's sudden demise. It was a great pity that no com­petent doctor had been present. Mr Min had doubtless a fair knowledge of medicine, most elderly householders had, it used to be part of their general education. But he could not be compared to a professional physician, of course, and certainly not to a coroner. The judge himself was thoroughly familiar with forensic medicine and he would have liked to do an autopsy on the dead girl. But that was of course out of the question.

Then he thought about his retinue, left at the gap. He hoped it would have proved possible to maintain the bridge­head, so that the soldiers could pass the night in the barracks there. He was a bit worried about the two Senior Investi­gators from the capital who had brought to Pei-chow the Imperial Decree concerning his promotion and who were now part of his retinue. Born and bred in the capital, they were accustomed to travel in comfort. This made him think of his wives and children. It was fortunate that they had still been in his native place when the news of his promotion arrived in Pei-chow. The day he left there he had ordered his assistant Tao Gan to stay behind to receive his successor, and sent his trusted lieutenants Ma Joong and Chiao Tai to Tai-yuan, to inform his First Lady and escort her, his two other wives and his children direct to the capital. It was a safe route, he need not worry about them.

Time passed surprisingly fast. Sooner than he had expected the bailiff's head appeared again at the head of the step-ladder.

'Anything new?' Yen asked eagerly as he stepped on to the platform.

'Nothing,' the judge replied. 'But it looks as if the sky is going to clear. If that should happen, you had better keep a close watch on those scoundrels over there.'

He picked up the lantern and went down.

When he was about to enter the main building, he met the steward Liao. The gaunt man was coming from the stable yard.

'I thought I heard the horses neigh, and went to see whether the stables were dry. When will the bandits come, do you think, sir? This terrible waiting ...'

'Hardly before dawn. Isn't it very cold in those outhouses over there? What about the women and children among the refugees?'

'They are all right, sir. The walls are heavy, and we put a thick layer of straw on the floor.'

The judge nodded and went inside. The fire in the hall had gone out now; it was stone cold there. All was quiet as the grave. Aided by his lantern, he found his way up to the landing on the second floor without difficulty. Then he climbed the stairs to the third floor, treading carefully in order to avoid the creaking steps.

Upon entering the dead girl's room he was surprised to find it lit by a silvery, diffuse light. It came from the paper panes of the sliding doors. He crossed the room and pushed the doors open. The moon had come out, bathing the moun­tain scene in its white, eerie light.

He stepped out on the balcony. The floorboards and the plain wooden balustrade were still wet with the rain. At the extreme left was a bamboo flower rack. A few empty pots stood on the three shelves, one above the other, like library steps.

Now he could see clearly that it was indeed a battering-ram the bandits were working on. He did not think, how­ever, that they could have it ready before dawn, for they had to construct a wheelcart too, in order to bring the ram down the slope and up to the gatehouse. Leaning over the balustrade, he saw, about twenty feet below, the roofs of the buildings in the back part of the compound. He looked up. The broad eaves of the roof hung over the balcony. Above the lintel of the sliding doors there was a row of wooden panels about three feet square, each carved with an intricate design of dragons sporting among clouds. He reflected that this careful finishing of all details proved that the country house was at least two hundred years old. Later architects did not spend so much loving care on such details any more.

There was a pleasant nip in the air; it looked as if the frost might set in again before long. He decided to leave the doors half open. That would also help him to hear the gong better, should there be an alarm. He was about to prepare himself for bed, but changed his mind when his eye fell on the music table at the back of the room. He did not feel sleepy, really, and trying his hand at the lute would help him to pass the time. Besides, all the old lute handbooks recommended a moonlit night as the most suitable time for playing this instrument. He had played the seven-stringed lute in his youth, for it had been the favourite musical instrument of the Immortal Sage Confucius, and its study was part of the liter­ary education. But the judge had not touched the strings for many years. He was curious to see whether he could still remember the complicated finger technique.

HE PULLED THE SILK STRINGS IN SUCCESSION

He pulled the music table round and placed the ebony seat behind it so that he sat with his back to the wall. Mas­saging and flexing his cold fingers, he examined the instru­ment with interest. The red laquer of the flat, oblong sound­box was covered with small bursts, indicating that this particular instrument was at least a hundred years old, and a valuable antique. He pulled with his forefinger the seven silk strings in succession. The lute had an uncommonly deep tone, its vibrating notes echoed in the silent room. The tuning was still approximately correct, which proved that she must have played it shortly before her death. While he adjusted it by turning the agate pegs on his right hand, he tried to remember the opening of one of his favourite melodies. But when he had started to play he soon realized that, although he remembered the melody quite clearly, he had forgotten the finger technique. He pulled out the drawer where lute players usually keep their musical scores. Leafing through the slender volumes, he found only the more diffi­cult classical compositions, which would be far beyond him. There were several copies of the well-known melody 'Three Variations on the Plum-blossom Motif' — which was only to be expected since the dead girl had been so fond of those flowers. At the bottom of the drawer he discovered the score of a brief, rather simple melody, which bore the title of 'Autumn in the Heart'. He had never seen it before and the words, written by the side of the notation in a small, neat hand, were completely new to him. A few words had been crossed out, and the score had been corrected here and there. Evidently this was one of the dead girl's own compositions. The song consisted of two parts:

He played the melody through once, very slowly, his eyes glued to the score. There was a lilt in it that made it easy to memorize. After he had repeated the more difficult bars a few times, he knew the tune by heart. He shook the cuffs of his fur coat back from his wrists and prepared to play it seriously, raising his head to the moonlit mountain scene outside.

All of a sudden he stopped playing. Out of the corner of his eye he had seen a slender girl, standing by the desk in the left corner. The grey shape was shrouded in shadows, but the bent shoulders and the profile with the curved nose, and the hair combed back straight from the brow were clearly outlined against the moonlit screen door.

For the barest instant the grey shape hovered there. Then it dissolved into the shadows.

Judge Dee sat motionless, his hands resting on the silken strings. He wanted to call out, but a tight feeling was con­stricting his throat. Then he got up, stepped round the lute table and slowly advanced a few paces in the direction of the left corner where the shape had disappeared. Dazedly he stared at the desk. No one was there.

He rubbed his hand over his face. It must have been the ghost of the dead girl.

With an effort he pulled himself together. He pushed the sliding doors wide open, and stepped out on the narrow balcony. There he took a deep breath of the cold crisp air. In his long career he had on occasion met with ghostly phen­omena, but those had proved to have a perfectly natural explanation, in the end. However, how could there be a rational explanation of the dead girl's apparition he had witnessed just now? Could it have been a figment of his imagination, just as when he thought he had heard the dead girl address him, after he had lain himself down to sleep? But then he had been dozing, whereas now he was wide awake.

Slowly shaking his head, he went inside again, pulling the sliding doors closed behind him. He took his tinderbox from his sleeve and lit the small storm lantern. He had made up his mind. The ghostly apparition could mean only one thing: that the girl had died a violent death here in this room. Her disembodied spirit was still roaming about, and trying desper­ately to manifest itself, overcoming the barrier that separates the dead from the living. While he was falling asleep she had succeeded in getting her voice across to him. Just now, when he was concentrating his mind on the melody she had composed herself, the contact had suddenly been established, enabling her to project her shape for one brief moment in the world of the living. His duty was clear. He took the lantern and went downstairs.

On the landing on the first floor he halted. A strip of light came from under the door of the sick man's room. He tiptoed up to it and pressed his ear to the panel. There was a low murmur of voices, but he could distinguish no words. After a while the murmur ceased. Then someone began to intone a low chant, resembling a magic incantation, or a prayer.

He descended into the hall. Standing at the bottom of the staircase, he lifted his lantern to orientate himself. Apart from the main entrance, he remembered having seen only one other door down there, behind his chair when he was having dinner. That seemed to tally with Mr Min's remark that the house chapel was at the back of the hall.

He walked across the hall and rattled at the door. It was not locked. As he opened it, the heavy smell of Indian in­cense told him that his assumption had been correct. He closed the door noiselessly behind him, and held the lantern high. Against the back wall of the small room stood a high altar table of red-lacquered wood, on it a small shrine con­taining a gilded statue of Kwan Yin, the Goddess of Mercy. In front of her he saw a silver incense burner. Four incense sticks were standing in the ash it was half filled with, their ends glowing.

The judge fixedly regarded the sticks. Then he pulled one from the bundle of new sticks lying by the burner, and com­pared its length with that of those burning in the vessel. The latter proved to be only a quarter of an inch shorter. That meant that the person who had lighted the sticks must have visited the chapel only a short while ago.

He pensively looked at the oblong box of unpainted wood which was standing on two trestles; this was the spare coffin the dead girl's body had been placed in. The wall opposite was covered from floor to ceding by a fine antique brocade hanging, embroidered with the scene of Buddha's entry into Nirvana. The dying Buddha was reclining on a couch; repre­sentatives of all beings of the three worlds surrounded him, bemoaning his departure.

The judge put his lantern on the altar table. He reflected that, since the door of the chapel had not been locked, any­one who liked could have gone in. Suddenly he had the un­comfortable feeling that he was not alone. Yet no one could have hidden himself in that small room. Unless there was an empty space behind the wall hanging. He stepped up to it, and pressed it with his forefinger. It was hanging directly against the solid wall. He shrugged. There was no use in speculating who could have visited the chapel before him. But he had better be quick, for the unknown visitor might come back.

He walked round the prayer cushion in the centre of the floor, and by the light of the lantern looked the coffin over. It was about six feet long but only two feet high, so he would probably be able to examine the dead body without having to remove it from the coffin. He noticed with satis­faction that the lid had not been nailed down, it was fastened only by a broad strip of oiled paper that had been pasted down all around it. But the lid looked fairly heavy, it would not be easy to remove it, all by himself.

He took off his fur coat, folded it and laid it on the floor. He didn't need it, for the air was close, and it was fairly warm in the small room. Then he bent over the coffin. Just as he was testing the edge of the paper band with his long thumbnail, he heard a sigh.

Frozen in his attitude, he strained his ears, but heard only the pounding of his own blood. It must have been the rust­ling of the wall hanging, for he noticed there was a slight draught. He began to loosen the paper band. Then suddenly a black shadow fell on the lid.

SUDDENLY THE JUDGE HAD THE FEELING THAT HE WAS NOT ALONE

'Leave her in peace!' a hoarse voice spoke up behind him. The judge swung round. The steward stood there, staring at him with wide eyes.

'I must examine Miss Kee-yu's dead body,' the judge said gruffly. 'I suspect foul play. You wouldn't know about that, would you? Why did you come here?'

'I ... I couldn't sleep. I had gone to the yard because I thought ...'

'That the horses were neighing. You told me that already when I met you out there. Answer my question!'

'I came to burn incense here, sir. For the rest of Miss Kee-yu's soul.'

'Commendable loyalty to your master's daughter. If that were true, why did you hide when I came in? And where?'

The steward pulled the wall hanging aside. With a tremb­ling hand he pointed at the niche in the wall, close by the farthest corner.

'There ... there was a door there, formerly,' he stam­mered. 'It was walled up.' Turning to the coffin, he went on slowly: 'Yes, you are right. I did not need to hide. There is no need to hide anything any more. I was deeply in love with her, sir.'

'And she with you?'

'I never let her know my feeling of course, sir!' the steward exclaimed, aghast. 'It is true that my family was well known, half a century ago. But it declined, and I haven't got a penny of my own. How could I ever dare to tell the land­owner that I ... Besides, she was engaged to be married, to the son of ...'

'All right. Now, tell me, do you think there was some­thing wrong about her sudden death?'

'No sir. Why should there be anything wrong? We all knew that she had a weak heart, and the excitement of ...'

'Quite. Did you see her dead body?'

'I couldn't have born that sight, sir! Never! I wanted to remember her as she was, always so ... so ... Mr Min asked me to help him and the old servant to place her in this ... this coffin, but I couldn't, I was so upset. First the bandits, and then this, this sudden ...'

'Well, you'll help me now to remove the lid, anyway!'

The judge loosened the end of the strip, then tore it down with a few jerks.

'You lift the other end!' he ordered. 'Then we'll let it down on the floor.'

Together they raised the lid.

All of a sudden the steward let his end go. The lid dropped back, half across the coffin. The judge just managed to pre­vent it from falling onto the floor.

'It isn't Kee-yu!' the steward shrieked. 'It's Aster!'

'Shut up!' the judge barked. He stared at the still face of the girl in the coffin. It was not without a certain vulgar beauty, even in death. Rather heavy eyebrows curved above the bluish lids of the closed eyes, the round cheeks had dimples, the full mouth was well-shaped. It did not in the least resemble Kee-yu's portrait.

'Let's put the lid down on the floor without too much noise,' he told the shivering steward quietly.

After he had let the heavy lid down onto the floor, the judge took the lantern and set it on a corner of the coffin. He pensively regarded the long white robe. It was of good silk, with a woven plum-blossom pattern. The sash had been tied directly below the generous bosom, in the customary elaborate, triple bow. The arms lay stiffly by the body's sides.

'The robe belongs to Miss Kee-yu all right,' the judge remarked.

'It does indeed, sir. But it's Aster, I tell you! What hap­pened to Miss Kee-yu?'

'We'll get to that presently. First I must examine this corpse. You wait outside, in the hall. Don't light the candle, I don't want anyone to know about this yet.'

The frightened steward began to protest with chattering teeth, but the judge pushed him unceremoniously outside, and closed the door.

He set to work on the bow of the sash. It took him some time before he had loosened the complicated knots. Then he put his left arm under the waist and raised the body a little so that he could remove the sash that had been wound several times round her torso. The body was quite heavy. This tallied with the old servant's complaint about the weight of the body he and Mr Min carried downstairs. He hung the sash over the edge of the box and pulled the robe open in front. She had no underwear, so that the shapely naked body was now entirely exposed. He took the lantern and examined it inch by inch, looking for signs of violence. But the smooth, white skin was whole, there were only a few superficial scratches on the large breasts, and here and there on the rounded belly. After he had established that she had been in about the fourth month of pregnancy, he pulled the stiff arms out of the wide sleeves. He cast a brief glance at the short, broken nails and the calluses on the hand palms, then turned the body on its side. He suppressed a cry. Just below the left shoulderblade there was a small black plaster, about the size of a copper coin. He carefully peeled it off. The discoloured flesh underneath showed a small wound. The judge studied it for a long time, feeling the flesh around it and finally probing the depth with a toothpick. She had been murdered. And with a long, thin knife, the point of which must have penetrated into the heart.

After he had laid the body on its back again he pulled the robe up over it. He tried to re-tie the triple sash-bow, but could not manage it. So he just tied the ends together in a simple knot. He looked down on the white shape for a while, his arms folded in his long sleeves, his bushy eyebrows knitted in a deep frown. It was all very puzzling indeed.

He opened the door and called the steward. Liao was trembling violently and his face had a deadly pallor. To­gether they replaced the lid on the coffin.

'Where is your room?' the judge asked while putting his fur coat on again.

'At the back of the compound, sir. Next to that of Mr Yen Yuan.'

'Good. Go straight to bed. I'll make a search for Miss Kee-yu.'

Forestalling any questions the judge turned round and left the chapel. At the entrance of the hall he dismissed the steward with a few kind words, then mounted the broad staircase.

Light came from the landing above. Mr Min was standing in front of the sick man's room, a tall candlestick in his hand. His broad, heavy-jowled face was as haughty as ever, and he was still clad in his long grey robe. He bestowed a baleful look on the judge and asked gruffly:

'Had your spell up in the watchtower?'

'I did. Nothing new. How is your brother, Mr Min?'

'Hm. I was just going to have a look. But since there's no light, I'd better go back to my own room. Wouldn't do to wake up his wife, she'll be dozing in the armchair by the bed. Woman is dog-tired. You had better have a good sleep too. No earthly use in gadding about. Good night.'

The judge looked after the portly gentleman as he shuffled to the door at the end of the landing. Then he climbed the stairs to the third floor.

Back in Kee-yu's room, he put the lantern on the table and remained standing there for a while, staring at the moon­lit panes of the sliding doors. If Kee-yu was alive, he could well have seen a fleeting glimpse of her shadow, cast on the outside of the door screen, and have mistaken it for a ghostly shape inside the room. If that were true, she must have been watching him from the balcony.

He pulled the sliding doors open and stepped outside. His previous examination of the situation out there had proved that it would be impossible to climb up on the balcony from below, or to let oneself down there from the roof. And since he had gone out on to the balcony very soon after seeing the apparition, there had been no time for using ladders. He turned round and looked up at the row of carved panels running above the lintel of the sliding doors. He quickly went inside again, and found that the ceiling of the room was only an inch or two above the lintel. That meant that between ceiling and roof there was a loft, only three feet high under the eaves, but increasing in height as the roof sloped upward to the top. Walking out on the balcony again, he gave the flower rack at the left end a thoughtful look. Suppose that there was an entrance to the loft up there? One could easily reach the panels by using the rack as a step-ladder.

He tested the lowest shelf with his foot. It was much too fragile to support his weight, but it would probably support a slight young girl all right. He fetched the ebony seat of the lute table from inside, and placed it close by the flower rack. The carved panels were now within easy reach. He felt the edge of the one just above the rack, and discovered he could move it aside a bit. When he exercised more pressure, the panel slid open. The light of his lantern fell on the pale, frightened face of the girl crouching just inside the dark opening.

'You had better come down, Miss Min,' the judge said dryly. 'You need not be afraid, I am a guest of your father staying here overnight. Here, let me give you a hand.'

But she did not need any assistance. She put her foot down on the upper shelf of the flower rack and lightly descended. Gathering her dust-covered blue robe around her, she cast a quick glance at the mountain slope where the fires of the bandits were burning high. Then she went silently inside.

The judge motioned her to take the chair by the table, then sat down opposite her, on the lute-seat, which he had dragged inside again. Stroking his long, greying beard, he studied her pale, drawn face. She had not much changed in the last three years. He marvelled again at the skill of the painter who had achieved that perfect likeness. And the pose from the waist upward had been cleverly contrived. It had glossed over the bent back that was nearly a hump, and it concealed the fact that her head was a little too large for the small, frail body. At last he spoke:

'I was told that you had died from a heart attack, Miss Min. Your old parents are mourning for you. In fact, it was the maid Aster who died here in this room. She was mur­dered.' He paused. When she remained silent, he resumed: 'I am a magistrate, from a district up north. This place does not belong to my territory, of course, but since it is com­pletely isolated now, I represent the law here. Therefore, it is my duty to investigate this murder. Please explain what happened.'

She raised her head. There was a sombre gleam in her wide eyes.

'Does it matter?' she asked in a low, cultured voice. 'We shall all be murdered. Soon. Look, the red glow of dawn is in the sky.'

The truth always matters, Miss Min. I am waiting for your explanation.'

She shrugged her narrow shoulders. 'Last night, before dinner, I had come up here. I washed and made up my face, waiting for Aster to come and help me change. When she did not appear, I got up and went out on the balcony. Standing on the balustrade, I watched the mountain slope, looking for those awful bandits, and thinking worriedly about what would happen to us. At last, when I had been standing there for a considerable time, I realized that it was getting late, and decided to change my robes without waiting for Aster. When I had gone inside, I saw Aster lying on my bed, on her right side, her back turned to me. With an angry remark on my lips I stepped up to the bed. Then I saw to my horror that the back of her dress was stained with blood. I bent over her. She was dead.

'I began to shriek, but quickly put my hand over my mouth. In a flash I realized what must have happened. When Aster came up and didn't find me in the room, she thought that I was still somewhere downstairs. She laid her­self down on my bed, planning to jump up as soon as she would hear me coming. She was that kind of impertinent, lazy girl, you know. Then someone came in and killed her, thinking it was me. Just when that awful thought had come to me, I heard shuffling footsteps on the landing outside. That must be the murderer coming back! In a panic I rushed out on the balcony, and up into the loft.'

She paused and pensively patted her hair with her slender white hand. Then she went on:

'I must explain that I had been exploring the possibilities of that loft, as soon as I learnt that the bandits had come. I wanted to ascertain whether it could serve as a hiding place for my old parents and me, should the bandits come and ran­sack the house. It seemed eminently suited for that purpose, so I put a few coverlets there, a water jar, and some boxes of dried fruit. Well, I hadn't left my bedroom one moment too soon. For now I heard the door open, and again those hor­rible, shuffling footsteps. I waited for a long time, straining my ears, but I heard nothing. At last there came a loud knocking on the door, and someone shouted for me. I thought it was a trick of the murderer, who had discovered his mis­take, so I kept quiet. Then there were again loud knocks on the door. I heard my uncle cry out in alarm that I was dead. My uncle had mistaken Aster for me. He had not met me after his arrival here, and the last time he had seen me had been seven years ago. Nor had he seen Aster, who had kept to the women's quarters that afternoon. Yet it was strange that my uncle made that mistake, for Aster had been wearing her blue maid's dress. I concluded that the murderer, when he came back the second time, had undressed the dead body and clad it in one of my robes. I wanted to come out and tell my uncle everything, then I reflected that it was much better to leave the murderer under the impression that I had disap­peared, thus giving me time to try to obtain a clue to his identity.

'Exhausted by fear and suspense, I slept that whole night. This morning I came down once to fetch a new jug of water and a box of cakes. I crept down to the landing on the second floor, and overheard the bailiff and the steward discussing my sudden death, from a heart attack. That proved to me that the murderer had somehow or other succeeded in obliter­ating the traces of his cruel deed, and that made me all the more afraid. For he must be an uncommonly resourceful and ruthless man. In the afternoon I slept. In the evening I heard voices in my room, one I recognized as that of the bailiff. Then all was quiet again, until I heard someone playing my lute, my own favourite melody. Since no one in the house plays the lute except me, I suspected it might be someone from outside, either the murderer or an accomplice. The rainstorm was over, so this seemed an excellent opportunity for trying to learn who my unknown enemy was. I climbed down noiselessly and peered round the screen door. In the shadows in the back of the room I saw a tall bearded man completely unknown to me. In a dead fright I fled up to my hiding place again. That is all, sir.'

Judge Dee nodded slowly. She was an intelligent girl, capable of logical reasoning. He pulled the tea-basket to­wards him and poured her a cup. He waited till she had emptied it eagerly, then asked:

'Who wanted to kill you, do you think, Miss Min?'

She shook her head disconsolately.

'No one I can think of, sir. That's exactly what frightens me so, that terrible uncertainty! I hardly know anybody from outside, for we have few visitors here, you know. Until last year a music master used to come here regularly from the village by the fortress, and my teacher in painting and calligraphy lived in for some time. Then, when my studies had been completed, and after my impending marriage to young Mr Liang had been announced, I led a very secluded life and saw no one that did not belong to the household.'

'In such a case,' the judge remarked, 'we always begin by looking for a motive. Am I right in assuming that you are the sole heir to the estate?'

'Yes, I am. I had an elder brother, but he died, three years ago.'

'Who would be the next heir?'

'My uncle, sir.'

'That might constitute a strong motive. I was told that, although your uncle is a wealthy man, he still is very fond of money.'

'Oh no, not uncle!' she cried out. 'He has always been very close to my father, he would never ... No, you may dismiss that idea at once, sir.' She thought for a while. After some hesitation, she resumed: 'There's Mr Liao, our steward, of course. I know he was fond of me. He never said so, of course, but I knew it all right. It's true that a man in his subordinate position, and without property, would ordinarily not even dream of marrying his master's only daughter. But since Liao comes from an old literary family that produced two eminent poets, there was a chance that my father, if I had been agreeable, would have considered an eventual pro­posal. However, Liao kept silent, and when my engagement to Mr Liang had been announced, it was of course too late. That news upset him greatly, I couldn't fail to notice that. But it seems unthinkable that such a modest, refined gentle­man as Mr Liao would ever ...'

She gave the judge a questioning look, but he made no comment. He took a sip from his tea, then said:

'I don't think that Aster was murdered by mistake, Miss Min. I am convinced that it was indeed she who was the murderer's intended victim. I examined her dead body just now, and found that she was pregnant. Have you any idea who could have been the father of her unborn child?'

'Any man she met!' Kee-yu said venomously. 'She was a lazy, lewd girl, always romping with the young farmhands in the backyard. She thought that nobody knew about her disgraceful behaviour, but I saw it with my own eyes, from the balcony up here. Disgusting, it was! Just like a common streetwalker! And it was she who stole the gold. We thought that she had run away with it. But as soon as I knew that she had been murdered, I realized that the gold must still be here, hidden somewhere in the house. Yes, you are right of course, sir! It was not a murder by mistake! It was her paramour who killed her, to get all the gold! We must find it, sir. Our life depends upon it!'

The judge refilled their cups. 'I heard,' he remarked casu­ally, 'that Aster was a simple, steady girl who looked after your sick father quite well.'

Her face went red with anger.

'She? Look after him? I shall tell you what she did, the insolent hussy! Tried to sell her body to him, that's what she did! My mother had to chase her out of father's room, time and again. I myself once caught her there, straighten­ing the quilts she was, she said. But she ought to have straightened her robe! It was hanging wide open in front; she was showing those fat breasts of hers! That's how she came to know about the key of the strongbox, the sly slut! And all the time that she was toadying up to father, she was playing her sordid little games with a vagabond she met in the fields! And he got her with child. You must interrogate those wretched refugees, sir; the fellow must have sneaked inside here with them. He killed her, to get the stolen gold.'

'Well,' the judge said slowly, 'I do believe that she was murdered by the father of her unborn child. But I don't be­lieve it was just a vagabond. A vagabond could never have had the opportunity for killing her up in your room here. It must have been someone who belonged to the household, who could come and go without anyone's questioning him. That man thought that he was alone with Aster up here when he stabbed her to death. But after he had gone down­stairs, he noticed that you weren't there, and he then realized that you must have been out on the balcony all the time, and most probably witnessed the crime. He decided to frighten you into silence. That's why he came up here again, and dressed Aster's body in your robe. In order to warn you that he would kill you too if you opened your mouth. He must be a very worried man by now. Who knew about your hiding place in the loft, Miss Min?'

'Absolutely nobody, sir. I had planned to tell my father last night, after dinner.'

'Quite.' The judge got up and went out on the balcony. In the grey light he saw that the wheelcart for the battering-ram was ready now. The Flying Tigers were leading their horses out of the cave. He sat down again and said:

'There aren't so many persons to choose our murderer from, really. I think that Yen Yuan, the bailiff, is our most likely suspect.' Cutting Kee-yu's protests short by quickly raising his hand, he went on: 'His scant interest in the dead body is suspicious. It makes one think he deliberately avoided seeing it, and not because of the sentimental reason that moved the steward Liao. Yen didn't want to run the risk of being asked why he didn't tell Mr Min that the body was not yours—should something go wrong. For, unlike Mr Min and his old servant, the bailiff, of course, knew you and Aster very well.'

She gave the judge a horrified look.

'Mr Yen is a well-educated, serious young man!' she cried. 'How could he ever so debase himself as to have an affair with a common country wench?'

'I am better qualified than you to assess such entangle­ments, Miss Min,' the judge said gently. 'Yen impresses me as a man of loose morals, who reluctantly left the city lights. I suspect that his father sent him here because of some sordid amorous affair that made a prolonged absence from the city desirable. His father thus condoned that one mistake. A second one, namely seducing a maidservant in the house of a relative, might well have resulted in his father's expelling him from the family.'

'Nonsense!' she exclaimed angrily. 'Yen had been ill, and he was sent out here for a change of air.'

'Come now, Miss Min! An intelligent girl like you can't possibly believe such a thin story!'

'It is not a thin story!' she said stubbornly. Rising, she resumed: 'Would you now take me to my father, sir? I am anxious to tell him everything. And I also want to consult with him about making another search for the gold. For that is our only hope left. If we don't find it, and quickly too, the bandits will murder all of us!'

Judge Dee got up also.

'I shall gladly take you to your parents, Miss Min. How­ever, before doing so, I want you to accompany me to the watchtower. I shall question Mr Yen, and I want you to be present so that I can verify his statements at once. If he proves to be innocent, we must try to discover the gold by ourselves.' Seeing that she was about to protest, he pointed outside and exclaimed: 'Heavens, they are coming!'

With the frightened girl close by his side, he stared at the dozen or so horsemen that came galloping down the mountain slope. A wooden structure on wheels came behind them. Other bandits were crowding around it, checking its descent.

'They are bringing their battering-ram down!' the judge said excitedly. He grabbed her sleeve and snapped: 'Hurry up, time is pressing!'

'What about the gold?' she cried out.

'Yen will tell us. Come on!'

He dragged the hesitating girl along. As they were rush­ing downstairs, the alarm gong in the watchtower began to clang. They quickly crossed the yard, where the refugees came pouring out of their quarters, babbling excitedly. While ascending the steep ladder in the watchtower the judge saw out of the corner of his eye two sturdy youngsters climb on the roof of the gatehouse where a large drag-net was lying ready.

'They are coming down, with a ram!' the bailiff shouted when Judge Dee appeared on the platform. 'They have ...'

He broke off in mid-sentence, looking with open mouth at Kee-yu, who was coming up behind the judge.

'You ... you ...' he stammered.

'Yes, I am alive, as you see,' she said quickly. 'I had found a hiding place in the loft, and the magistrate fetched me from there. You did not see the dead body, so you did not know it wasn't me. It was Aster.'

Confused shouts resounded outside the wall, below. Four horsemen were riding up and down there in the grey morn­ing light. They mockingly waved their spears, their tiger-skin capes fluttering in the breeze. The judge looked round at the broad expanse of the muddy river. The water seemed to have risen still higher after the rainstorm. But the mist had cleared; he thought he saw a black spot, in the distance.

Turning to the bailiff, he said harshly:

'Everything has become crystal-clear now, Mr Yen. You and Kee-yu murdered Aster together. She was with child by you, and pressed you to marry her. But your affair with that poor peasant girl had just been a little amusement on the side. You were counting on marrying Miss Kee-yu, the heir­ess. Kee-yu loved you passionately, but she knew that her father would never give his consent to your marrying her. Kee-yu had been solemnly betrothed to Mr Liang, and he would never give her to a penniless wastrel who was more­over a relative. The arrival of the Flying Tigers suggested an excellent solution of your problem. Kee-yu stole the gold and hid it in a safe place. Then you two murdered Aster. You dressed her in one of Kee-yu's robes; there was no time for putting on underclothes too. Kee-yu hid herself in the loft. You, Mr Yen, would take the necessary measures to prevent anyone else but Mr Min and his old servant from seeing the dead body, and to have it encoffined as soon as possible. Thus everybody would assume that it was Kee-yu who had died. The small stab-wound in Aster's back had been carefully cleaned, and a plaster pasted over it. If Mr Min should have a look at her back, he would think that the plaster had been put on when she was still alive, and that it covered a scratch or something small like that. In fact he did not undress her; there was no reason to, for why should the thought of murder have entered his mind? Since he did not undress her, he did not see that she was not wearing any underclothes — a fact that might have set him thinking.'

'What a story!' Kee-yu said with disdain. 'Well, what would we have done afterwards, according to your fantastic theory?'

'That's simple. When the Flying Tigers were storming this house, Yen would disappear in the general confusion, and join you up in the loft. After the bandits had put every­body to the sword, ransacked the house and left, you two would come out of your hiding place, and wait till the flood had subsided. You knew that the bandits would not set the house on fire, as is their custom, for they would fear that the blaze would attract the attention of the sentries of the fort. Then you two would flee together to the city, with the gold, of course. Having lain low there for a suitable period, Kee-yu would go to the tribunal, with a long tale of woe: that she had been kidnapped by the Flying Tigers, who led her a terrible life till at last she succeeded in escaping from their clutches. Then she would claim the estate, as the right­ful heir. The two of you could go to some distant place, get married and live happily ever after. You would have sacri­ficed your old parents and about fifty other persons, but I don't think that would have bothered you very much.'

As Kee-yu and the bailiff remained silent, the judge resumed:

'Well, it was your bad fortune that I had to ask for shelter here last night. I discovered the murder, and I located you, Miss Min, in your hiding place. But you are an intelligent girl, I said so once and I'll say it again. You foisted on me a fairly plausible story. If I had believed it, you would presently have "discovered" the gold, the ransom would have been paid, and all would have been well. You had got rid of Aster, and you and Yen would in due time have evolved another scheme for eloping together and for getting the Min property into your hands.'

A dull rumbling sound came from below. The battering-ram was being rolled over the uneven ground towards the gate of the country house.

Kee-yu fixed the judge with her wide, burning eyes. 'The hungry heart,' he said to himself as he watched her pale, distorted face. Suddenly she burst out:

'You spoiled it all, you dog-official! But I shan't tell you where I hid the gold. So now we shall all die, and you with us!'

'Don't be a fool!' the bailiff shouted at her. He cast a horrified glance over the balustrade at the new group of ban­dits that came galloping down the slope, brandishing their swords. 'Holy Heaven, you must tell us where the gold is! You can't let me be slaughtered by those beasts! You love me!'

'And therefore you would like to put all the blame on me, eh? Nothing doing, my friend! We shall all die together, go the same way as that little strumpet of yours, your dear Aster!'

'Aster ... she ...' Yen stammered. 'What a fool I was not to have stuck to her! She loved me, and asked nothing in return! I didn't want her to be killed, but you, you said she had to go, for our own safety. And I, stupid fool, chose your money and you, you ugly, mean wretch with that large head of yours!' As Kee-yu staggered backwards, the bailiff went on with a choking voice: 'What a splendid woman she was! Think of it, I could have clasped that perfect, pulsating body in my arms, every night! Instead I made love to you, you measly bag of bones, had to join your ineffectual, filthy little games! I hate you, I tell you, I ...'

An agonized cry sounded behind the judge. He swung round, but he was too late. Kee-yu had thrown herself over the balustrade.

'We are lost!' Yen Yuan shouted. 'Now we can't get the gold! She never told me where ...'

He broke off, staring down over the balustrade in speech­less horror. One of the bandits had jumped from his horse. He walked up to the dead woman lying among the boulders, her head at an unnatural angle. The bandit stooped and tore the rings from her ears. Then he felt in her sleeves. He righted himself, his hands empty. With an angry shout he drew his sword and with one savage, slashing blow cut her belly open.

The bailiff turned round, retching violently. Clasping his hands to his middle he began to vomit. Judge Dee took his arm and pulled him up roughly.

'Speak up!' he snarled. 'Confess how you murdered the woman you loved!'

'I didn't murder her!' the bailiff gasped. 'She said that Aster had seen her when she took the gold, and that she must die. The she-devil had given me a thin blade, she said I would have to do it. But when Kee-yu was facing Aster, and when the poor girl denied having spied on her, she sud­denly took the dagger out of my hand. "You liar!" she hissed, pointing the dagger at her breast. "Strip and show me the charms you used to bewitch my man!" After the frightened girl had undressed, she made her stand against the bed-post, and raise her arms above her head. Aster was shivering in the cold room, but she stiffened in nameless fear as that hideous creature began to touch her breasts and all the rest of her body with the flat of the dagger, making hor­rible, obscene remarks all the time. Aster moaned in abject terror, every so often she tried to turn away, but the she-devil would let her feel the point of the dagger, and mutter hideous, unspeakable threats at her. And I, I had to stand there helpless, in a deadly fear that in her frenzy she would wound or mutilate the poor, defenceless girl. At last, when Kee-yu let the dagger drop for a moment, I grabbed her shoulders and shouted at her to stop. Kee-yu gave me a con­temptuous look. She told the trembling girl haughtily to turn round. Coolly feeling with her left hand for the edge of the shoulder-blade, she plunged the dagger deep into her back.

'I GRABBED HER AND SHOUTED AT HER TO STOP ...'

'I stumbled back, sought support against the wall. Half-stunned, I looked on as she laid Aster on the floor, carefully staunched the bleeding and cleaned the wound, all the time humming a horrible little tune. After she had put a plaster on the wound, she made a neat bundle of Aster's clothes, and dressed her in one of her own white robes. Then she told me to help her lay the dead body on the bed. She tied the girl's sash, as calmly as if she were knotting her own, in front of her dressing-table. It was ... it was unspeakable, I tell you!'

He buried his face in his hands. When he looked up he asked, making a desperate effort to keep his voice under con­trol: 'How did you find us out?'

'I was set on the right trail by the old landowner's in­direct warning, namely his insisting on my staying in his daughter's room. He was fond of her, but he knew how her morbid brooding over her weak health had warped her mind, and he suspected there had been some devilry connected with her death. When I talked to her up in her room, she had herself well under control. But passion is a dangerous thing. One word in praise of Aster, and a few critical remarks about you sufficed to make her betray herself. As to you, Mr Yen, you aren't as good at play-acting as she. The fear of death pervaded this house and all its inmates, except you. You did not, however, impress me as a man of courage. On the con­trary, I thought you were a coward — quite correctly, as has now been proved. Yet you spoke in a nearly flippant manner about our impending fate. That was because your thoughts were not on death. They were on life, life in ease and com­fort, on your paramour's inherited money. And the elaborate bow of Aster's sash you mentioned just now clinched the case. For only a woman could have tied it in exactly that way. It came so naturally to Kee-yu that it never occurred to her that she was leaving a clue that pointed directly at her.'

The bailiff stared at him, dumbfounded. The judge re­sumed:

'Well, I believe every word you said just now. Kee-yu was indeed the main criminal, you only her will-less tool. But you are an accomplice to a cruel murder, and therefore you shall be beheaded on the scaffold.'

'Scaffold?' Yen laughed shrilly. His sobbing laughter be­came mixed with dull thuds from below. 'Listen, you fool! The Flying Tigers are breaking the gate down!'

The judge listened silently. All of a sudden the thuds ceased. It was dead quiet for a brief while. Then there were suddenly loud shouts and curses. The judge leaned over the balustrade.

'Look!' he ordered Yen. 'See how they run!'

The bandits had abandoned the battering-ram. The horse­men were frantically whipping up their horses, while those on foot ran behind them as fast as they could, towards the mountain slope.

'Why ... why are they running away?' the bewildered bailiff stammered.

The judge turned round and pointed at the river. A large war-junk was being borne swiftly to the shore, the long oars beating the waves in a quick rhythm so as to keep the ship at the right angle for being beached. Coloured banners were fluttering above the long halberds and peaked helmets of the soldiers that crowded the deck. In the stern many capari­soned horses stood tethered close together. Behind the junk came a second one, slightly smaller. Its deck was piled with logs and coils of thick rope. Small men in brown leather jackets and caps were busily mounting wheels to low carts.

'I sent a letter to the commandant of the fortress, last night,' the judge spoke in a level voice. 'I explained that the notorious Flying Tigers were marooned here, and asked for a cavalry force, and a detachment of sappers. While the sol­diers are rounding up the bandits, the sappers will repair the bridge over the gap, to enable my escort to get across and join me. In the meantime I shall wind up this murder case here. I expect I shall be able to leave at noon. For I am under orders to proceed to the Imperial capital without undue delay.'

The bailiff stared at the approaching junks with unbeliev­ing eyes.

'How did you get that letter to the fort?' he asked hoarsely.

'I organized flying tigers of my own,' the judge replied curtly. 'I wrote about a dozen identical letters, sealed them and handed them to one of the youngsters whom I had seen flying kites in the afternoon. I told him to attach each copy to a large kite. He was to fly them one after the other. Each time one was high up in the air, he was to cut the string. With the north wind blowing steadily, I hoped that at least one or two of the brightly-coloured kites would reach the village on the opposite bank, be found and taken to the commandant of the fort. And that is what happened. This is the end of the Flying Tigers, Mr Yen. And your end too.'