The Chinese Lake Murders

Seventh Chapter

They stood silently round the coffin, staring with unbelieving eyes at the hideous corpse. The forehead had been cleft by a fearful blow. Covered with dried blood, the head presented a sickening sight.

"Where is my daughter?" Liu Fei-po suddenly screamed. "I want my daughter!" Guildmaster Wang put his arm round the shoulder of the stricken man and led him away. He was sobbing wildly.

Judge Dee turned round abruptly and went back to the bench. He rapped the table hard and said testily:

"Let everyone return to his appointed place! Ma Joong, go and search this temple! Undertaker, let your assistants take the body out of the coffin!"

Slowly the two men lifted the stiff corpse from the coffin and lowered it onto the reed mat. The coroner knelt by its side and carefully removed the bloodstained clothes. The jacket and trousers were of rough cotton, showing clumsy patches. He folded these articles and put them in a neat pile. Then he looked up expectantly at the judge.

Judge Dee took his vermilion writing brush and wrote at the head of an official form: "One male person of unknown identity." He gave the form to the scribe.

The coroner dipped a towel in the copper basin and removed the blood from the head, revealing the terrible, gaping wound. Thereafter he washed the entire body, examining it inch by inch. Finally he rose and reported:

"One body of a male person, musculature well developed, age approximately fifty years. Rough hands with broken nails, pronounced callosity on the right thumb. Thin, short beard and gray mustache, bald head. Cause of death: one wound in the middle of the forehead, one inch broad and two inches deep, presumably inflicted by a two-handed sword or a large ax."

When the scribe had entered these details on the form, the coroner added his thumbmark on it and presented the paper to the judge. Then Judge Dee ordered him to search the clothes of the dead man. The coroner found in the sleeve of the jacket a wooden ruler, and a soiled scrap of paper. He laid these objects on the table.

The judge gave the ruler a casual look, then smoothed out the piece of paper. He raised his eyebrows. While putting the scrap of paper in his sleeve he said:

"All present shall now file past the corpse and try to identify it. We shall begin with Liu Fei-po and Master Wang."

Liu Fei-po looked cursorily at the disfigured face, then shook his head and quickly passed on. His face was of a deadly pallor. Guildmaster Wang wanted to follow his example but suddenly he uttered an astonished cry. Suppressing his aversion he stooped over the corpse, then exclaimed:

"I know this man! It's Mao Yuan, the carpenter! Last week he came to my house to repair a table!"

"Where did he live?" the judge asked quickly.

"That I don't know, Your Honor," Wang replied, "but I'll ask my house steward; it was he who called him."

Judge Dee silently caressed his side whiskers. Then he suddenly barked at the undertaker:

"Why didn't you, a professional undertaker who is supposed to know his job, immediately report to me that the coffin had been tampered with? Or isn't it the same one in which you placed the dead woman? Speak up and tell the truth!"

Stuttering with fear the undertaker answered:

"I… I swear it's the same coffin, Your Honor! I bought it myself two weeks ago and burnt my mark in the wood. But it could easily be opened, Your Honor! Since it was only a temporary coffin we didn't hammer the nails in very carefully and-"

Judge Dee cut him short with an impatient gesture.

"This corpse," he announced, "shall be properly clad in a shroud and replaced in the coffin. I shall consult the family of the deceased regarding the burial. Until then two constables shall stand guard in this hall, lest also this corpse disappear! Headman, bring the caretaker of this temple before me! What is that dog's-head doing anyway? He should have presented himself here!"

"The caretaker is a very old man, Your Honor," the headman said quickly. "He lives on a bowl of rice that some pious people bring twice daily to his cell next to the gatehouse. He is deaf, and nearly blind."

"Blind and deaf, forsooth!" the judge muttered angrily. He said curtly to Liu Fei-po:

"I shall without delay institute an investigation into the whereabouts of your daughter's body."

Then Ma Joong came back into the hall.

"I respectfully report," he said, "that I have searched this entire temple, including the garden behind it. There is no trace of a dead body having been concealed or buried there."

"Go now back with Master Wang," Judge Dee ordered him, "find out the address of the carpenter, and proceed there at once. I want to know what he has been doing these last days. And if he should have male relatives, I want them brought to the tribunal for questioning."

Having thus spoken, the judge rapped the table and declared the session closed.

Before leaving the hall he walked over to the coffin and scrutinized its inside. There were no bloodstains. Then he examined the floor all around it, but among the confused mass of footprints in the dust he could discover no smudges or other signs of blood having been wiped up there. Evidently the carpenter had been killed somewhere else, and his body brought to the hall and placed inside the coffin after the blood had already coagulated. He took leave of the company and left the hall, followed by Sergeant Hoong.

Judge Dee remained silent all the way back. But when he was in his private office and Hoong had helped him change into a comfortable house robe, his morose mood left him. As he sat down behind his desk he said with a smile:

"Well, Hoong, plenty of problems to solve! By the way, I am glad that I placed the professor under house arrest. Look what the carpenter carried in his sleeve!"

He pushed the scrap of paper over to Hoong, who exclaimed, astonished:

"The name and address of Dr. Djang are scribbled here, Your Honor!"

"Yes," Judge Dee said with satisfaction, "our learned doctor apparently overlooked that! Let me now see that list you had him draw up, Hoong."

The sergeant took a folded piece of paper from his sleeve. As he handed it to the judge he said dejectedly:

"As far as I can see, Your Honor, his handwriting is quite different from that of the love letters."

"You are right," the judge said. "There isn't the slightest resemblance." He threw the sheet on the table and continued: "When you have had your noon rice, Hoong, you might try to locate in the chancery a few samples of the handwriting of Liu, Han, Wang and Soo; all of them will have sent at one time or another letters to the tribunal." He took two of his large red official visiting cards from the drawer and gave them to the sergeant, adding: "Have these cards forwarded to Han Yung-han and Councilor Liang, with the message that I shall pay them a visit this afternoon."

When Judge Dee rose the sergeant asked:

"What on earth could have happened to the corpse of Mrs. Djang, Your Honor?"

"It is no use, Hoong," the judge replied, "to ponder over a puzzle as long as all pertaining pieces have not yet been assembled. I shall now put that entire problem out of my mind. I am going to eat my noon rice in my own house, and have a look how my wives and children are getting on. The other day my Third Lady told me that my two sons are already writing quite nice essays. But they're a couple of rascals, I tell you!"

Late in the afternoon, when Judge Dee came back to his private office, he found Sergeant Hoong and Ma Joong standing by his desk, bent over several sheets of paper. Hoong looked up and said:

"Here we have samples of the handwriting of our four suspects, Your Honor. But none of them resembles that of the dancer's letters."

Judge Dee sat down and carefully compared the various letters. After a while he said:

"No, there's nothing there! Liu Fei-po is the only one whose brush stroke reminds me a bit of that of the Student of the Bamboo Grove. I could imagine that Liu disguised his hand when he wrote those love letters. Our writing brush is a very sensitive instrument. It is very difficult indeed not to betray one's manner of handling it, even if one uses a different type of writing."

"Liu Fei-po could have known Candidate Djang's pen name through his daughter, Your Honor!" the sergeant said eagerly, "and used it for signing his letters for want of a better!"

"Yes," the judge said pensively. "I must get to know more about Liu Fei-po. That is one of the subjects I plan to raise with Han and the Councilor; they will be able to tell me more about him. Well, Ma Joong, what did you learn about the carpenter?"

Ma Joong sadly shook his large head.

"There's not much to be found out there, Your Honor! Mao Yuan lives in a hovel way down near the lake, near the fish market. There's only his old woman; you have never seen such an ugly old harpy! She hadn't been worrying at all about her husband's absence, because when he was on a job he would often stay away several days. And I don't blame the fellow either, cursed as he is with a woman like that! Well, three days ago he left in the morning saying that he was going to the house of Dr. Djang to repair some furniture for the coming wedding feast. He told his wife he would find a place to sleep in the servants' quarters there, for the job would take several days. That was the last she saw of him!"

Ma Joong pulled a face and went on:

"When I told his pleasant mate the sad news, she only said that she had predicted long before that her old man would come to a bad end, because he always went to wine houses and gambling dens with his cousin Mao Loo. Then she asked for the blood money!"

"What an impious woman!" Judge Dee exclaimed angrily.

"I told her," Ma Joong said, "that she couldn't get that before the murderer had been caught and convicted. She started to call me names and accused me of having pocketed the money! I hurriedly left the harridan, and went to make inquiries in the neighborhood. The people there say that Mao Yuan was a good-natured, hard-working fellow and no one blames him for drinking a bit too much on occasion, for married to a woman like that a man needs some consolation. But they added that his cousin Mao Loo is a real bad lot. He is also a carpenter by profession, but he has no fixed place to live. He roams all over the district looking for odd jobs in wealthy houses, and pilfers there what he can. He spends all his money drinking and gambling. Of late no one has seen him in that neighborhood. There's a rumor that he was expelled from the Carpenters' Guild because he wounded another carpenter with a knife during a drunken brawl. Mao Yuan had no other male relatives."

Judge Dee slowly sipped his tea. Then he wiped off his mustache and said:

"You did well, Ma Joong! We know now at least the meaning of that scrap of paper we found in the sleeve of the murdered man. You'd better go now to the professor's residence and find out together with Chiao Tai, who is watching there, when Mao Yuan arrived in Dr. Djang's house, what work he did, and when exactly he left there. Also keep an eye on that neighborhood; perhaps you may yet find that weird fellow who watched me through the window." He rose and continued to the sergeant: "While I am away, Hoong, you can go to the street where Liu Fei-po lives and have a look around there. Try to collect in the shops in that neighborhood some gossip about him and his household. He is the complainant in the case of Liu versus Djang, but at the same time he is one of our main suspects in the case of the murdered dancer!"

He emptied his teacup and walked across the courtyard to the gatehouse where his palanquin stood waiting for him.

In the street outside it was still quite hot. Fortunately, the Han mansion was not far from the tribunal.

Han Yung-han stood inside the monumental gate waiting for the judge. After the exchange of the usual courtesies he led his guest into a dimly lit hall cooled by two round copper basins loaded with blocks of ice. Han made Judge Dee sit down in a capacious armchair next to the tea table. As he busied himself giving orders for tea and refreshments to the obsequious steward, the judge looked round. He estimated that the house was well over a hundred years old. The wood of the heavy pillars and of the carved roof-beams above was blackened by age, and the scroll paintings decorating the walls had acquired a mellow tinge of old ivory. The hall was pervaded by an atmosphere of quiet distinction.

After fragrant tea had been served in antique cups of eggshell porcelain, Han cleared his throat and said with stiff dignity:

"I offer Your Honor my humble apologies for my unseemly behavior last night."

"It was a most unusual situation," Judge Dee said with a smile. "Let's forget about it! Tell me, how many sons do you have?"

"I have only a daughter," Han replied coldly.

There was an awkward pause; it had not been a very fortunate opening. But the judge reflected that he could hardly be blamed. One would expect a man of Han's status, with many wives and concubines, to have some sons. He continued unabashed:

"I'd better tell you frankly that I am completely baffled by that murder on the flower boat, and that queer case of Liu Fei-po's daughter. I hope you'll kindly let me have your opinion on the character and background of the persons connected with these two cases."

Han bowed politely and replied:

"I am entirely at Your Honor's service. The quarrel of my friends Liu and Djang has shocked me deeply. Both are prominent citizens of our small town. I hope and trust that Your Honor will be able to effect an amiable settlement; that would-"

"Before thinking of any attempt at conciliation," Judge Dee interrupted him, "I'll first have to decide whether the bride died a natural death and, if not, punish the murderer. But let's begin with the case of the dead dancer."

Han raised his hands. He exclaimed, annoyed:

"But those two cases are as far apart as Heaven and Earth, Your Honor! The courtesan was a beautiful woman, a talented woman, but after all only a professional dancer! Those girls often get involved in all kinds of unsavory affairs. Heaven knows how many of them die a violent death!" Leaning over to the judge he continued confidentially: "I can assure Your Honor that nobody who counts here will raise any objection if that case is treated by the tribunal a bit, ah… superficially. And I hardly think that the higher authorities will evince much interest in the death of a light woman. But the case of Liu versus Djang-Heavens! that affects the reputation of our city, Your Honor! All of us here would deeply appreciate it if Your Honor could persuade them to agree to a compromise, perhaps by suggesting-"

"Our views on the administration of justice," Judge Dee interrupted him coldly, "are evidently too far apart to admit fruitful discussion. I confine myself to a few questions. First, what was your personal relation to the dancer Almond Blossom?"

Han grew red in the face. His voice trembled in suppressed anger as he asked:

"Do you expect an answer to that question?"

"Certainly!" the judge said affably, "else I wouldn't have asked it!"

"Then I refuse!" Han burst out.

"Here and now that is your good right," the judge remarked calmly. "I shall pose the same question to you in the tribunal, and you will have to answer it, so as not to be guilty of contempt of court-on penalty of fifty lashes. It's only to spare your feelings that I ask you that question now."

Han looked at the judge with blazing eyes. He mastered himself with difficulty and replied in a flat voice:

"The courtesan Almond Blossom was good-looking, she was an expert dancer, and her conversation was entertaining. Therefore I thought she was qualified to be hired to amuse my guests. Apart from that, the woman didn't exist for me; whether she is alive or dead leaves me completely indifferent."

"Didn't you tell me just now that you have a daughter?" Judge Dee asked sharply.

Han apparently considered this question as an attempt at changing the subject. He ordered the steward who stood waiting at a discreet distance to bring candied fruit and sweetmeats. Then he said amicably:

"Yes, Your Honor; her name is Willow Down. Though one shouldn't praise one's own child, I dare say she is a remarkable girl. She displays a great talent for painting and calligraphy. She even has-" He had no sooner spoken than he caught himself up selfconsciously: "But my household affairs will hardly interest Your Honor."

"I now come to my second question," Judge Dee said. "What is your estimate of the character of the guildmasters Wang and Soo?"

"Many years ago," Han replied in a formal voice, "Wang and Soo were unanimously elected by the members of their guild to act on their behalf and look after their interests. They were elected because of their elevated character and irreproachable conduct. I have nothing to add to that."

"Now a question about the case Liu versus Djang," the judge resumed. "Why did the professor resign so early?"

Han shifted uncomfortably on his chair.

"Must that old affair be raked up again?" he asked testily. "It has been established beyond all possible doubt that the girl student who lodged the complaint was deranged in mind. It is most commendable that Dr. Djang still insisted on tendering his resignation, because he opined that a professor of the Temple School should never get talked about, even if he were proved completely innocent."

"I'll consult our files about that case," Judge Dee said.

"Oh, Your Honor won't find anything about it in the dossiers," Han said quickly. "Fortunately, the case has never been before the tribunal. We, the notables of Han-yuan, have heard the persons concerned and settled the case, together with the Rector of the School. We deem it our duty, Your Honor, to spare the authorities unnecessary work."

"So I noticed!" the judge remarked dryly. He rose and thanked Han for his kind reception. When Han was conducting him to his palanquin the judge reflected that this interview didn't seem to have laid the foundation for a lasting friendship.