"Since the dancer wanted to betray him, Liu had to kill her instantly. I could have read the truth in Liu's eyes when he was watching her dance. He had to kill her, and he knew it was the last time he would see her in her dazzling, breath-taking beauty. There was hate in his eyes, the hate of the betrayed lover, but at the same time the deep despair of the man who is going to lose the woman he loves.
"Guildmaster Peng's sickness gives Liu a good pretext for leaving the dining room. He accompanies Peng to the starboard deck. While Peng is standing there at the railing, very ill, Liu walks over to port, beckons Almond Blossom through the window, and leads her to the cabin. He knocks her unconscious, places the bronze incense burner in her sleeve, and lets her down into the water. Then he joins Peng, who by then is feeling better, and returns together with him to the dining room. You can imagine Liu's state of mind when he heard that the body had not sunk down to the bottom of the lake, and that the murder had been discovered.
"However, worse things were still to come for Liu. The following morning he learns that his beloved daughter, Moon Fairy, has been found dead on her bridal couch. He had lost the two women who dominated his emotional life. His maniacal hatred does not turn against Candidate Djang, but toward his father. Liu's own forbidden passion makes him assume at once that the professor too is guilty of desire for Moon Fairy. This is, at least as far as I can see, the only explanation for Liu's fantastic accusation of Dr. Djang. Moon Fairy's death is a fearful shock for Liu. When her dead body unaccountably disappears, Liu at last loses his self-control completely. From then on Liu is as a man possessed, hardly responsible for his actions.
"His henchman Kang Choong has stated in his confession that Liu at once ordered all his men to search for his daughter's body. He then behaved so strangely that Kang Choong, Guildmaster Wang and Wan I-fan began to worry over their leader. They strongly disapproved of Liu's abducting Han Yung-han; they said it was much too risky, and that the murder of the courtesan would be sufficient warning to Han not to talk about what she had told him. But Liu refused to listen; he had to hurt his rival in love. Thus Han was put in a closed palanquin by Liu's underlings, carried round in Liu's garden, then brought into the secret room under his own house! Han described to me the hexagonal room correctly, and he remembered that he was carried up the ten steps that lead from Liu's secret passage up to the crypt. The man with the white mask was Liu himself, who would not forego this opportunity for humiliating and maltreating the man with whom he thought Almond Blossom had been deceiving him.
"We now approach the end of this somber tale. Moon Fairy's body is not found; Liu is hard pressed for money, and he also fears that I am beginning to suspect him. In this tight corner he decides to disappear as Liu Fei-po, and to direct the final phase of the conspiracy in his role of Councilor Liang.
"I arrest Wan I-fan before Liu has apprised him of his planned disappearance. When I tell Wan that Liu has fled, Wan is convinced that Liu has abandoned his ambitious scheme, and he decides to tell me everything, in order to save his own skin. But the clerk of the court, Liu's agent in our tribunal, warns Liu, and Liu has him hand Wan the poisoned cake. The lotus emblem on the cake was not intended for Wan-remember that it was dark in his cell! -it was meant for me, in order to frighten and confuse me so that I would not interfere those last days before the revolt.
"That same night Liu lets Wang and Kang Choong be informed that henceforward they must contact him in the Councilor's residence. Wang and Kang hold council together; they agree that Liu is losing his head, and that Wang shall take over. Wang goes to the crypt to appropriate the secret-key document, which will give him power over the entire organization. But Liu had already transferred that document to the hiding place in the goldfish bowl. Tao Gan and I surprise Wang in the hexagonal room, and he is killed."
"How did Your Honor know that the document was concealed in the goldfish basin?" Chiao Tai asked eagerly.
Judge Dee smiled. He said:
"When I visited the so-called Councilor, and was kept waiting in his library, the goldfish first behaved in a perfectly natural manner. As soon as they saw me standing over the bowl, they came to the surface, expecting to be fed. But when I stretched out my hand to die statue, they suddenly became very excited. That astonished me, but I didn't stop to think about the possible cause. However, after I had reached the conclusion that Liu was acting the part of the old Councilor, I suddenly remembered the incident. I knew that those fish are hypersensitive, like all animals of breeding; they do not like people dipping their hands in their water. I realized that they must have had a previous experience of a hand doing something under the water and thus disturbing their small, quiet world. Thus I deduced that the pedestal probably was a secret hiding place. And since the most important possession of Liu was a small document roll, I assumed that he had hidden it there. That's all!"
Judge Dee took up his angling rod and started to put the line in order.
"This important case," Sergeant Hoong said with satisfaction, "will doubtless bring quick promotion for Your Honor!"
"For me?" the judge asked, astonished. "Goodness, no! I am very glad that I wasn't summarily dismissed from the service! The Grand Inquisitor has reprimanded me severely for my belated discovery of the plot, and the official document about my being reinstated in my function as magistrate here repeated that remark in black and white, and in no uncertain terms! There was added to it a note from the Board of Personnel, which said that it was only my last-moment finding of the key document to the conspiracy that had moved the authorities to clemency. A magistrate, my friends, is supposed to know what is going on in his district!"
"Well," Hoong resumed, "anyway, this is the end of the case of the murdered courtesan!"
Judge Dee remained silent. He put down his rod and looked pensively out over the water for a while. Then he slowly shook his head and said:
"No, I have a feeling that this case is not yet ended, Hoong; not quite. The courtesan was possessed by such an implacable hatred that I fear that Liu's suicide has not appeased her. There are passions so intense, of such an inhuman violence, that they gain, as it were, a life of their own, and retain their power to harm even long after those who harbored them have died. It is even said that those dark powers will sometimes possess themselves of a dead body and then use it for their sinister aims." Noticing the disconcerted look on the faces of his four companions, he hastily added: "However, strong as they are, those ghostly forces can only harm a man who raises them himself by his own dark deeds."
The judge bent over the gunwale and looked into the water. Did he see again, deep down below, that still face staring up at him with unseeing eyes, as on that fateful night on the flower boat? He shivered. Looking up, he spoke, half to himself.
"I think that a man whose mind is bent on evil had better not roam alone at night on the banks of this lake."
POSTSCRIPT
Judge Dee, the central figure of the present novel, is, as in all old Chinese detective stories, a district magistrate. From early times until the establishment of the Chinese Republic in 1912, this government official united in his person the function of judge, jury, prosecutor and detective.
The territory under his jurisdiction, a district, was the smallest administrative unit in the complicated Chinese government machine. It usually comprised one fairly large walled city, and all the countryside around it, say for sixty or seventy miles. The district magistrate was die highest authority in this unit; he was in charge of the town and land administration, the tribunal, the collection of taxes, registration of births, deaths and marriages, while he was also generally responsible for the maintenance of public order in the entire district. Thus he had practically full authority over all phases of the life of the people in his district, who called him, therefore, the "father-and-mother official." He was responsible only to the higher authority, viz. the prefect, or the governor of the province his district formed part of.
It was in his function of judge that
the district magistrate displayed his talents as a detective. In Chinese crime literature, therefore, we find the masterminds that solve baffling crimes never referred to as "detectives," but always as "judges."
As in the other Judge Dee novels, I have tried to show here how comprehensive the duties of the magistrate were. Crimes were reported direcdy to him; it was he who was expected to collect and sift all evidence, find the criminal, arrest him, make him confess, sentence him, and finally administer to him just punishment for his crime.
To assist him in this onerous task he received but little help from the permanent personnel of the tribunal. The constables, the scribes, the guards, the warden of the jail, the coroner, all these minions of the law performed only their routine duties. The judge was not supposed to require their help in the gentle art of detection.
Every judge, therefore, had attached to his person three or four trusted lieutenants, whom he carefully selected at the beginning of his career, and kept with him while being transferred from one post to another, till he ended his career as a prefect or a provincial governor. These assistants derived their rank and position-which was higher than that of any of the other members of the tribunal-from the personal authority of the judge. It was upon them that the judge relied for assistance in the detection and solving of crimes.
Every Chinese detective story describes these lieutenants as fearless strong-arm men, experts in Chinese boxing and wrestling. They had to be, for the Chinese detective had the same noble tradition as his later English colleague of Bow Street: he carried no arms, and caught his man with his bare hands.
Like most of his colleagues, Judge Dee recruited these men from the "brothers of the green woods," that is to say, highway robbers of the Robin Hood type. They usually became outlaws because having been falsely accused, having killed a cruel official or for similar reasons they were forced to live by their wits. The Judge Dee novel The Chinese Gold Murders describes how, at the beginning of his career, he selected Ma Joong and Chiao Tai, and the present novel relates how the wily Tao Gan became attached to his staff.
These lieutenants were the judge's legmen. He sent them out to make inquiries; he told them to interview witnesses, trail suspects, find out the hiding place of a criminal and arrest him. This does not imply, however, that the judge himself refused to budge from his quarters. The code of conduct for the Chinese official prescribed that whenever a judge left the tribunal on official business, he should do so with all the pomp and circumstance incident to his office. But he could go about incognito, and often did. Having disguised himself, he would leave the tribunal in secret, and set out on private tours of investigation. The present novel describes Judge Dee's first experiment in this line, and the lessons he learned.
Still, it is true that the main scene of the judge's activity was the court hall of the tribunal. There, throned on the dais behind the high bench, he confused wily suspects by his clever questioning, bullied hardened criminals into a confession, and wheedled the truth out of timorous witnesses. The tribunal was a part of the offices of the district magistrate-• the town hall, as we would call it. These offices constituted together one large walled compound, being separated from each other by courtyards and galleries. On entering through the main gate-an ornamental archway flanked by the quarters of the guards-one found the court hall at the back of the first courtyard. A large bronze gong was suspended on a wooden frame at the gate. Three beats on this gong announced that a session of the court was about to be opened, while every citizen also had the right to beat this gong, at any time, to make it known that he wished to bring a case before the magistrate.
The court was a spacious hall, completely bare except for a few inscriptions suspended on the wall, extolling the majesty of the law. At the back of the hall was the dais, with the bench. Behind the bench stood a large armchair, occupied by the magistrate when the court was in session. To the left and right of the bench stood lower tables, where the scribes sat and noted down all the proceedings. Behind the bench, a doorway gave entrance to the private office of the magistrate-the judge's chambers, as we would say. This doorway was covered by a screen bearing a large image of the unicorn, the ancient Chinese symbol of perspicacity. In his private office the magistrate conducted all routine business when the court was not in session. There were as a rule three sessions every day, one early in the morning, one at noon and one late in the afternoon or in the early evening. Sundays did not exist: the only official holiday was New Year's Day.
The private office looked out on a second courtyard, around which were built a number of smaller offices where the clerks, the archivists, the copyists and the other personnel of the tribunal and the district administration did their work. Behind the chancery there was a garden with, at the back of it, the large reception hall, used for various public occasions and for receiving important visitors.
Finally, the compound contained the living quarters of the magistrate, where dwelt his wives, his children, and his own servants. These private quarters formed a small compound in themselves.
As to the methods followed by an ancient judge in solving crimes, he was naturally handicapped by the lack of all the aids developed by modern science. For him there were no fingerprint system, no chemical tests, no photographic experiments. On the other hand, his work was facilitated by the wide powers granted him under the provisions of the Penal Code. He could have anyone arrested on the mere issuing of a warrant; he could put the question to suspects under torture, have recalcitrant witnesses beaten up on the spot, use hearsay evidence, bully a defendant into telling a lie, and then trip him up with relish-in short, he could openly and officially use all kinds of third and fourth degrees which would make our judges shiver in their gowns. It must be added, however, that it was not by torture or other violent means that the ancient Chinese judges achieved their successes, but rather by their wide knowledge of their fellow men, their logical thinking and, above all, by their sound common sense. Chinese magistrates like Judge Dee were men of great moral strength and intellectual power, and at the same time refined literati, by their education thoroughly conversant with Chinese arts and letters. While their classical education had given them a comprehensive knowledge of human affairs, including a smattering of medicine and pharmacology, the detailed Buddhist speculations on the analysis of human emotions and the working of the mind, at an early date introduced into China from India, had given Chinese scholars shrewd psychological insight. Therefore Judge Dee's analysis of Liu Fei-po's abnormal love life as described in the present novel is not as anachronistic as it would seem at first sight.
Abuse of judicial authority was checked by several controlling factors. In the first place, the district magistrate was but a small cog in the colossal Imperial administrative machinery. Fie had to report his every action to his immediate superiors, accompanied by all pertaining original documents. Since every official, high or low, was held completely responsible for the actions of his subordinates, these data were carefully checked on several administrative levels, and if there was any doubt, a retrial was ordered. If a mistake was found there followed severe disciplinary action against the responsible magistrate. The magistrate's position of well-nigh absolute power and complete superiority over all persons brought before his bench was but borrowed glory, based not on his personal rank but solely derived from the prestige of the system he was temporarily appointed to represent. The law was inviolable, but not the judge who enacted it. No judicial official could ever claim for himself immunity or any other privilege on the basis of his office. As soon as a higher authority found fault with a judge, he was summarily divested of all his power, and immediately reduced to the sorry state of "prisoner" before the bench, kneeling on the bare floor and beaten and insulted by the constables-until he had justified his conduct. In this novel I tried to illustrate this point.
It does credit to the democratic spirit that has always characterized the Chinese people, despite the autocratic form of their ancient government, that
the most powerful check on abuse of judicial authority was public opinion. The Lü-hsing, a document dating from before the beginning of our era, states that "judges should act in concert with public opinion." All sessions of the tribunal were open to the public and the entire town was aware of and discussed the proceedings. Thus all hearings of a case, also those of the preliminary investigation, were carried out in public; in this respect the old Chinese system was even ahead of our own. The teeming masses of the Chinese people were highly organized amongst themselves, and could make their voice heard. Next to such closely knit units as the family and the clan, there were the broader organizations of the professional guilds, the trade associations and the religious brotherhoods. If the populace chose to sabotage the administration of a cruel or arbitrary judge, taxes would not be paid on time, the registration would become hopelessly tangled, and public works would fall into disrepair. And soon an Imperial Censor would appear on the scene and institute an investigation. These dreaded Censors traveled strictly incognito all over the Empire, vested with absolute powers, and responsible only to the Throne. They were empowered to have any official summarily arrested and conveyed to the capital for trial.
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