The Willow Pattern: A Judge Dee Mystery (Judge Dee Mystery Series)

by Robert Van Gulik

  He bent over the desk, and began to examine all the writing implements and small ornaments with meticulous care. He took up the ink-slab, a small oval piece of stone of about half an inch thick, and admired the delicate carving of the tiny plumblossoms that decorated the rim. Passing his finger over the perfectly clean surface of the stone, he made an appreciative remark on its fine quality. Then he looked at the white, new writing-brush, the small paperweight of green jade, and the water container of white porcelain. He did all this in a casual manner. But Tao Gan realized that the judge was looking for something. Peering over his shoulder, his hands behind his back, the thin man followed every movement. But try as he might, he could not guess what exactly the judge was trying to find.

  At last Judge Dee got up. He cast a last, sweeping glance at the room and said with satisfaction:

  ‘Everything here breathes a spirit of antique elegance.’ Tao Gan had come to know his chief very well. He concluded from his mien that he had not found what he had expected to discover in the library.

  They went down the marble staircase. When they were standing in the hall again, Mrs Mei said:

  ‘My cousin is waiting in the front hall, my lord. Tea and refreshments are served there. I hope your lordship will allow me to retire now, I…’

  The judge did not seem to have heard her. Pointing at the moon door, he asked the housemaster:

  ‘What is the room over there used for?’

  ‘It’s our best guest-room, sir. It’s rarely used, only for the master’s old friends, as a matter of fact. It’s not large, but it offers complete privacy. For it has a door that gives access to the side garden, connected with the street outside by a small gate. Thus the guests can come and go as they like.’

  ‘Show me that room,’ the judge said curtly.

  ‘It’ll be very untidy, my lord!’ Mrs Mei protested. ‘No one has used it these last weeks, and the maids…’

  Judge Dee had already gone to the moon door and pushed its lattice door open. He remained standing just beyond the threshold, his arms folded in his wide sleeves. He took in the enormous bedstead on the left, closed by blue satin curtains that hung down to the white marble floor from the elaborately carved ebony canopy, high up under the raftered ceiling. The bedstead was flanked by a clothes-rack and a washing-stand with a brass basin. When his eye fell on the large dressing-table against the wall opposite, beside a narrow door, he walked straight over to it, followed on his heels by Tao Gan.

  The judge cast a cursory glance at the round mirror of polished silver on its black lacquered stand, but the row of small porcelain boxes containing cosmetics seemed to arouse his interest. He opened every one of them, inspecting the powder and different kinds of rouge inside. He seemed completely oblivious of Mrs Mei and Doctor Lew, who were standing by the bedstead, watching Judge Dee with blank faces. The judge now directed his attention to the set for painting eyebrows beside the mirror: a large, square ink-slab of more than two inches thick and five inches square, a thin writing-brush, the cake of ink on its small wooden stand, and the silver water container for moistening the ink-slab prior to rubbing the ink. The surface of the slab was caked with dried ink, and the tip of the brush was black.

  He turned round, walked over to the bedstead and parted the blue curtains. A crumpled white silk cover was lying across the bedmat, a red brocade pillow was pushed into a corner. There was a smell of stale cosmetics.

  Mrs Mei beckoned the housemaster, who had remained outside.

  Tell the maids to have this room cleaned and aired at once!’ she told him in a vexed voice.

  The housemaster came hurriedly inside.

  ‘Certainly, madam! Is there something wrong, my lord?’ He stared, astonished, at the judge. About to close the bed-curtains again, he had all of a sudden checked himself. He was standing stock-still, his eyes on the floor. Now he stooped, lifted the left curtain’s seam, and scrutinized the marble flag just underneath, directly beside the heavy front leg of the bedstead, carved in the shape of a huge lion’s paw. Righting himself, he curtly told Tao Gan:

  ‘Have a look at those grey stains on the marble!’

  Tao Gan squatted. He wetted the tip of his forefinger and rubbed the stains. He stood up and said:

  ‘It’s ink, sir. Old stains. They have been wiped off, but the ink had soaked into the marble. They ought to be scrubbed with sand, then they’d disappear completely.’

  Judge Dee was still holding the seam of the curtain in his hand. Now he brought it close to his eyes and examined the smooth satin. Then he turned it over. Nodding slowly he showed Tao Gan a large, dark-brown stain, on the reverse of the seam.

  He let the curtain drop, and looked fixedly at Mrs Mei.

  ‘Your husband died here in this room, madam,’ he said coldly, ‘Murdered.’

  Mrs Mei’s face turned deadly pale. She quickly stepped back, to Doctor Lew, who was standing still as a graven image.

  ‘Yes, he was murdered,’ the judge repeated. ‘He was struck down by a blow of that heavy square ink-slab on the dressing-table there. His crushed skull hit the floor right here by this leg of the bedstead. The marble was stained by his blood and by the ink that had been rubbed on the slab shortly before it was used as a murder weapon. Blood and ink were wiped up, but the traces of the ink remained. The seam of the curtain had swept the blood, and the red stain on its reverse remained unnoticed.’ Turning to the doctor, he added: ‘This, incidentally, explains the ink smudges on the dead man’s cheek, doctor.’

  Mrs Mei remained silent; she was staring at the judge with wide, unbelieving eyes. Doctor Lew spoke up, nervously:

  ‘I could think of at least a dozen other explanations for the facts you mention, sir! You are famous for your logical mind, my lord. Surely you wouldn’t distress Mrs Mei with a foolhardy statement, based on such flimsy evidence?’

  The judge gave him a scornful look.

  ‘Of course I would not do that,’ he said quietly. ‘The clues found here are only secondary evidence. The main point is that you and Mrs Mei lied to me about the time of Mr Mei’s death. You stated that Mrs Mei found her husband’s body at the bottom of the stairs in the hall at about ten o’clock. That means that he fell down the staircase before that time. But why should he then have taken a burning candle with him, when he left his library to go downstairs? The hall and the gallery upstairs are lit fairly well by the large red lampion, and it burns till midnight.’ As Mrs Mei and Dr Lew looked at him, dumbfounded, he crossed his arms and spoke: ‘Mrs Mei and Doctor Lew, I arrest you two for the murder of Mr Mei Liang. Call the soldiers who carried our sedan chair, Tao Gan!’

  XVIII

  About half an hour before the night session of the tribunal, Tao Gan was helping Judge Dee to put on his ceremonial robe, in the ante-room of his private office. Handing the judge his winged cap, Tao Gan remarked:

  ‘I never liked that doctor, sir.’

  ‘Neither did I,’ the judge replied dryly. He carefully adjusted the cap in front of the special mirror, mounted on the black lacquered box in which the cap was kept.

  ‘You went to Mei’s library to look for a possible murder weapon, didn’t you, sir?’

  Judge Dee turned round.

  ‘I went there in the first place to verify whether Mei had been writing something just before his death. I was thinking of the black smudges on his cheek, you see. As you yourself pointed out to me, the ink might have spattered accidentally onto his face while he was preparing it by rubbing the ink-cake on the stone slab. I found that he had been reading, however, and that the ink-slab and writing brush on his desk were perfectly clean. I then knew that his head must have been bashed in by another ink-slab; a large and heavy one, that had been used shortly before the murder, and therefore was still wet with ink. I found the murder weapon in the guest-room downstairs.’ He looked out through the window and said disconsolately: ‘The weather isn’t changing, after all.’

  ‘When did you begin to suspect that Mei had been murdered, sir?�
� Tao Gan asked keenly.

  The judge folded his arms.

  ‘Until the housemaster had told me that the lamp on in the hall burns till midnight, I had only a vague feeling that something was wrong. A real accident, Tao Gan, can rarely be reconstructed as completely as that which allegedly happened to Mr Mei, you see. Consider the candle dropped at the head of the stairs, the slipper halfway down, the blood on the top of the newel, and the dead man’s head lying close to that newel! It was all too pat. It seemed as if someone had deliberately charted the way it happened, so to speak, step by step. Further, the fact that Mrs Mei was a former courtesan and that her husband was twice her age, brought to mind, of course, the all too familiar trio: old husband, young wife, secret lover. That I gave Mrs Mei the benefit of the doubt was because of my high opinion of Mr Mei’s staunch character and brilliant mind. I assumed that a man like him would never have chosen the wrong woman. Unfortunately I was quite wrong.’

  ‘The guest-room downstairs was an ideal place for clandestine amorous meetings,’ Tao Gan observed.

  ‘That is why I insisted on seeing the room, as soon as the housemaster had told me that it had a back door that gave access to the garden and the street. I did indeed find there all the clues I needed. Mrs Mei had said herself that the room had not been occupied for weeks. Yet the dressing-table had been used quite recently, and by a woman. The covers of the porcelain powder boxes still bore the traces of fingertips, and the set for painting eyebrows had been recently used. And the bedstead had been slept in. The stain on the floor and on the curtain provided the final clues to what had actually happened. Old Mr Mei had evidently surprised the lovers at midnight or thereafter, and one of them killed him by striking his head with the heavy ink-slab, the other acting as accomplice. Then they dragged his dead body to the hall and deposited it at the bottom of the staircase. All was dark there, hence their mistake about the candle Mei had allegedly been carrying.’

  Judge Dee paused. Giving his lieutenant a shrewd look, he resumed:

  ‘Trying to make a crime too perfect is a mistake of many murderers, Tao Gan. They will try to lead investigators astray by adding superfluous details, not realizing that it’s exactly those that arouse suspicion. In this case the candle, the slipper, and the blood on the newel were quite superfluous. As you pointed out very correctly when we were standing in the hall, Tao Gan, the fall from those steep stairs would have proved fatal to an old man like Mei anyway. Anybody who would find him at the foot of the stairs with a crushed skull, would have accepted it as death by accident. It was the superfluous clues that did for them.’ He nodded pensively and continued: ‘Doctor Lew made that mistake twice, as a matter of fact. The second time was when I talked with him alone in the Yee mansion, after Mrs Yee’s suicide. I then asked Lew whether Mrs Mei was an ex-courtesan. Mr Fang had told me already that she had indeed been a courtesan, and I asked Lew only in order to make him talk about her, so as to find out more about their relationship. For I then had only a very vague feeling that there was something wrong with Mr Mei’s accident. Lew could just have replied that he did not know anything about Mrs Mei’s antecedents—which would have left me exactly where I was. When, however, he emphatically denied that she was an ex-courtesan, and told me a cock and bull story about her belonging to an old and distinguished family, and having married old Mei against her father’s will, I understood that he knew everything about her real past. His telling me a perfectly superfluous string of lies suggested that he wanted to protect her against being suspected of the crime that comes to mind first in the case of a married ex-courtesan, namely, that of adultery. Thus Lew’s lies gave substance to my vague doubts, and I started to…’ He broke off and looked round.

  The door had burst open and Ma Joong came rushing inside.

  ‘Bluewhite is in the Chancery, sir! She says she absolutely must speak to you.’

  Judge Dee darted a quick glance at his excited lieutenant.

  ‘I would certainly like to make her acquaintance,’ he said calmly. ‘However, there’s no time now. We must proceed to the tribunal at once. We are late, and Chiao Tai is waiting for us there.’

  ‘She said it’s terribly important, sir!’ Ma Joong protested.

  ‘Tell her to wait, then. Come along!’

  The judge descended the stairs, followed by his two lieutenants. While passing the chancery on the ground floor, Ma Joong slipped inside.

  He rejoined Judge Dee and Tao Gan when they were about to ascend the sedan chair, in front of the gatehouse.

  ‘I told her to wait, sir,’ he reported with a crestfallen look. ‘She seemed very angry. And she refused to tell me what it was all about.’

  ‘She is a very independent young woman,’ Judge Dee said and climbed into the sedan chair. When they were being carried away, he asked:

  ‘What about those scavengers, Ma Joong?’

  His tall lieutenant clasped his hand to his forehead.

  ‘I clean forgot to tell you!’ he exclaimed, annoyed at himself. ‘All went well, sir. Our men arrested about sixty of them. It turned out that there were only two ringleaders, an ex-chief of a robber band and a renegade Taoist priest. They had been planning to organize a popular uprising, under the guise of a religious, anti-government movement. They wanted to take over the old city, plunder to their heart’s delight, then clear out with the loot. The two ringleaders will be beheaded tonight. The others we let go, after a dressing-down they’ll remember for a long time to come! To my great regret, sir, I have to report that Doctor Lew did not know about the plot. Guess why he frequented the scoundrels, sir! Just because he wanted them to inform him if they came upon a corpse that showed unusual symptoms of the sickness! I can’t make out the bastard at all!’

  ‘I had Lew arrested one hour ago,’ the judge told him. Then he gave Ma Joong an account of what he had discovered in the Mei residence. When he had finished, he looked anxiously up at the sky. Shaking his head dubiously, he said:

  ‘I still think the clouds are less stationary than before. And the air is even more humid than at noon. I still haven’t given up hope that the rain will come, at last.’

  They descended from the chair in front of the high gate of the military tribunal. Since martial law had been declared in the capital, all criminal cases had to be dealt with here instead of in the Municipal Tribunal or in Judge Dee’s own High Court. The guards presented arms and a captain in full dress led the judge to the reception room. Chiao Tai came to meet them.

  After he had invited the judge to be seated at the simple tea table, Chiao Tai presented to him the captain who would look after the court procedure. While the judge was sipping his tea, the captain explained all the details respectfully. By and large the procedure was the same as that followed in a civilian court, but greatly simplified. It was about eleven when Chiao Tai and Ma Joong led the judge and Tao Gan to the court.

  The large hall was lit by torches, military fashion. Against the back wall stood rows of long halberds, peaks and spears, and in front of them was a raised platform with the bench: a high table covered by a piece of scarlet cloth. To the left and right stood a dozen military police with drawn swords. In the corner two orderlies were seated face to face at a small table littered with rolls of blank paper and writing instruments. They would act as scribes, noting down the proceedings verbatim.

  Chiao Tai took the judge up to the platform, and pulled out the high armchair behind the bench. The judge seated himself, and Chiao Tai stood himself at Judge Dee’s right side, Ma Joong on his left. Tao Gan sat down on the stool at the end of the bench.

  Chiao Tai barked an order at the captain. He advanced in front of the bench, saluted and announced:

  ‘Everything is ready, sir!’

  Judge Dee took the gavel.

  ‘As Emergency Governor of the Imperial capital, I herewith declare the session open.’ He rapped the gavel. ‘This court shall deal with the murder of Mr Mei Liang, a merchant of this city. I shall first hear the accused, Doctor Lew. H
ave him led before me, Captain!’

  The captain gave an order to the military police. Two soldiers marched off through the arched door opening on the left.

  Judge Dee inspected the forms that lay before him. They were blanks made especially for the emergency. Since each sheet bore already the impression of the large red Imperial seal countersigned by the Prime Minister, each leaf was carefully numbered. Ordinarily every capital sentence pronounced in the empire had to be submitted to the Grand Council, then to the Emperor himself for the final approval. Now, however, the emergency rules allowed summary justice.

  The two soldiers led Doctor Lew before the bench. After he had knelt, the judge spoke:

  ‘Doctor Lew, you have delivered false testimony twice. First when you stated that Mr Mei had died at or about ten o’clock in the evening, and the second time when you stated that Mrs Mei had not been a courtesan, but belonged to a distinguished family. Why did you make those statements, knowing full well that they were false? You stand accused of being concerned in the murder of Mr Mei, and I advise you to tell the truth and nothing but the truth.’

  Doctor Lew raised his head. He was pale, but his voice was firm when he replied:

  ‘This person denies emphatically having been concerned in the murder of Mr Mei, but he confesses that he did give your lordship wrong information. I was foolish enough to believe the fancy tale Mrs Mei foisted on me. I was fully aware of the fact that she had been a courtesan, but I believed that she was an honest woman regardless, and genuinely in love with her husband, and——’

  The judge rapped his gavel.

  ‘I want an orderly statement. You have said that on the night in question you had dinner with Mr Mei, and that Mrs Mei attended upon you both. Begin from there!’

  ‘After I had taken leave of Mr Mei, I went indeed to the housemaster’s room, my lord. After I had given him the medicine, however, I decided there was nothing to worry about, and I went home.’