The Judge Dee Novels of R.H. van Gulik
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“The Case of the Vanished Bride”
Victim: Moon Fairy, fatal defloration
Villain’s motive: lust
Moon Fairy’s body is quickly encoffined when she is found unresponsive on her marriage bed the night after her wedding. Her father, Liu Fei-po, accuses her husband’s father, Djang Wen-djang, of killing her. When the coffin is opened, Judge Dee discovers that her body has been replaced by that of Mao Yuan. Ma Joong and Chaio Tai are sent to an island occupied by a gang of outlaws, where they manage to rescue Moon Fairy.
“The Case of the Spendthrift Councilor”
Victim: Liang Meng-kwang, senility
Villain’s motive: conspiracy, treason
Liang Meng-kwang has been in failing health. His nephew reports that he seems unwisely to be selling portions of his estate. Judge Dee discovers that the Councilor’s fate is intertwined with the conspiracy.
Prologue
The prologues to the first two novels provided portraits of Ming dynasty gentlemen who, in somewhat eerie experiences, were told of three criminal cases solved by Judge Dee. They thus provide a “source” for the narrative that followed. The prologue to The Chinese Lake Murders has a more complicated relation to the tale that follows. It too provides a source: one night a Ming dynasty magistrate who has come to Han-yuan in order to investigate a case of embezzlement meets a woman beside the lake. She tells him a tale of three criminal cases solved by Judge Dee. But the magistrate is a troubled man, and an element of his troubles seems to involve his relationship with his daughter. In the morning, when citizens of Han-yuan discover him by the lake, the magistrate is standing beside the drowned corpse of the missing courtesan, Almond Blossom. Almond Blossom is the name of the courtesan who, in The Chinese Lake Murders, was drowned in the Han-yuan lake by Liu Fei-po some 700 years earlier in the first of Judge Dee’s cases. And Liu Fei-po had an unnatural affection for his daughter, Moon Fairy, an affection that he had transferred to Almond Blossom, who resembled Moon Fairy.
At the end of the novel, Judge Dee dismisses one “immemorial mystery” about the lake of Han-yuan: he learned early in the novel that occasionally “foul creatures come up from its unfathomable deep to harm the living” (3.40). People drown and their bodies are never recovered. Judge Dee discovers a natural explanation: the presence of huge tortoises with a taste for dead human flesh. But in the final paragraph, he suggests a new mystery about the lake: “I think that a man whose mind is bent on evil had better not roam alone at night on the banks of this lake” (25.215). And so the ending of the novel circles back to its prologue.
The Magistrate’s Lieutenants
In The Chinese Maze Murders, van Gulik took an opportunity to add depth to Chaio Tai by providing him with a background in the military. In The Chinese Lake Murders, van Gulik shades in a bit more of Tao Gan’s character by making Judge Dee’s posting in Han-yuan the occasion for Tao Gan’s entry into the Judge’s service. The Judge rescues the fifty-year-old Tao, “a guest of rivers and lakes” (= an itinerant swindler), from a group of villagers whom he has been cheating with dice and who are beating him in reprisal. Tao Gan experiences an epiphany and asks to be permitted to join the Judge’s team of lieutenants and to apply the skills he has acquired as a confidence man roaming the extent of the empire to the service of the Judge.
Ma Joong distinguishes himself when, in order to elicit information from the courtesan Peach Blossom, he spends the night in her company and later commends her charm and declares that he evidently pleased her (5.56).
Scene
For his third Judge Dee novel, which represents the Judge’s second posting, van Gulik returns the magistrate to the heart of China. Han-yuan will be Judge Dee’s base in a second novel (The Haunted Monastery), a novella (The Morning of the Monkey), and a short story (“The Murder on the Lotus Pond”). In the heartland, as on the frontier, Judge Dee must not only solve murders that affect the citizens of his district, he must also overcome larger conspiracies that threaten the integrity of the empire that he serves.
Plot
The original notion of three “independent” investigations has now been completely abandoned; the three crimes are now definitely linked. In The Chinese Lake Murders, all are connected in some way with the White Lotus conspiracy. In “The Case of the Drowned Courtesan,” Liu, the secret master of the White Lotus, murders Almond Blossom partly out of perverted passion—he is infatuated with her because she resembles his daughter—and partly because he understands she is about to betray his conspiracy. “The Case of the Spendthrift Councilor” turns out to be a consequence Liu’s need for mystery and for money to sustain his conspiracy. And “The Case of the Vanished Bride” involves Liu’s daughter, and concludes on the island where a gang of Liu’s thugs is preparing to initiate the White Lotus rebellion against the empire. And in a connection more of theme than plot, both “The Case of the Vanished Bride” and “The Case of the Drowned Courtesan” involve Liu feeling he has been betrayed by women he has been passionately in love with: his daughter Willow Down and Almond Blossom, the courtesan who physically resembles her. (The resemblance becomes more than physical when, after nearly dying of defloration, Willow Down shows remarkable resilience while the captive of Mao Loo, and even flaunts her sexuality as a device to help Ma Joong and Chiao Tai escape from Three Oaks Island.)
Three Oaks Island
Mao Loo murdered his cousin when Mao Yuan insisted that the girl they had discovered prematurely encoffined in the abandoned temple be restored to her new husband. When Mao Loo realizes he cannot keep Moon Fairy in low-class brothel where she has been imprisoned and beaten, he carries her to Three Oaks Island in the near-by district of Chang-pei. It is, Tao Gan reports, part of “a cluster of islands, or rather a swamp in the middle of the Great River” (14.153), a lawless place where gangs of outlaws have found refuge. As van Gulik notes in his Postscript, Three Oaks Island is an echo of the “robbers nest” that lies at the center of one of the four great Chinese novels, Shui-hu-chuan (Shuihu Zhuan), an account of 108 men who, oppressed by misfortune or injustice, flee to the Liangshan Marsh and constitute themselves a polity in defiance of corrupt authority. Authorship has been attributed to various late Yuan, early Ming writers such as Shi Nai’an (c. 1296–1372) and Luo Ben (c. 1330–1400), and the novel, in versions of 70 to 120 chapters, has been translated into English as All Men Are Brothers (Pearl Buck), Outlaws of the Marsh (Sidney Shapiro), The Marshes of Mount Liang (Alex and John Dent-Young), and Water Margin (J.H. Jackson).
But whereas the outlaws of Shui-hu-chuan are gallants cast in a Robin Hood mode, the outlaws of Three Oaks Island appear to be brutish thugs, a step below the rough, homicidal and would-be rapist, Mao Loo. They welcome Mao Loo into their community, but two of the “brothers” attempt to rape Moon Fairy and must be driven off by Mao, who, despite days of control over his prize, never violates her. And where the outlaws of the marsh seek ultimately reconciliation with the corrupted social order that precipitated their alienation, the outlaws of Three Oaks Island have joined in Lui Fei-po’s White Lotus rebellion against the legitimate Tang dynasty.
The White Lotus
As van Gulik acknowledges, the White Lotus is an anachronism if Judge Dee is identified with the historical Judge Di. While the Buddhist teachings that underlie the White Lotus movement were present in Tang China, the White Lotus Society that shook the empire and led to the establishment of the new Ming Dynasty dates its origins to 1344, in the final years of the Yuan dynasty. Repairs of the massive flooding of the Yellow River required a huge assembly of laborers. Han Shantong preached a messianic version of Buddhism to the workers, and in 1351 he initiated a rebellion against the Mongol Yuans. His White Lotus Society (bailian jiao) proclaimed: “The empire is in utter chaos…. Maitreya Buddha has incarnated, and the King of Light has appeared in this world” (Shek 98). When Han was captured and executed, his son Han Lin’er assumed the title “King of Light.” But it was Zhu Yuanzhang, who had once studied to be a Buddhi
st monk, who seized leadership of the movement and led it to success, defeating the Mongols and establishing himself as the Hongwu Emperor, founder of the Ming dynasty. Ironically, having acquired power, Zhu repudiated Buddhism and embraced Neo-Confucianism.
This victorious White Lotus Society that restored the imperial throne to a native Chinese emperor is, of course, not the sort of secret society that van Gulik confronts Judge Dee with. Dee’s White Lotus Society is an organization which had previously attempted to overthrow the legitimate emperor, and which has now been revived by the self-serving Liu Fei-po in a new plot of rebellion. There were later insurrections that adopted the aegis of the White Lotus, most famously in the uprising against the foreign Qing dynasty in1796–1804, but, as van Gulik acknowledges, most of these revolts were organized by “loyal and unselfish patriots.” None were successful until Sun Yat-sen’s Nationalist Party ended the Qing dynasty in 1912.
Chinese history does not lack rebellions led by men who were not “loyal and unselfish patriots,” but van Gulik evidently wanted to brand Liu Fei-po’s conspiracy with a recognizable name. And the triumph of the 14th century White Lotus movement, along with the near success of the late 18th / early 19th century White Lotus movement, provides a sense of the potential seriousness of the threat to the empire, and justifies the cold, harsh intervention of Meng Kee, the imperial Grand Inquisitor, into the stage of the investigation.
Van Gulik’s English
Although a reviewer of Dee Goong An heard an echo of Ernest Bramah’s Kai Lung in the phrasing of van Gulik’s translation, the echo is very faint. Persons hailed before the Judge’s tribunal do refer to themselves as “this insignificant person,” and wealthy citizens do utter exaggerated protests regarding the inadequacy of their hospitality, but van Gulik never plays the modesty topos for humorous effect, and he never indulges in rococo periphrasis.
In general, his English is quite transparent. Occasionally in striving for the colloquial, he does seem to hit a false note. Twice in The Chinese Lake Murders Ma Joong uses “forrader”—“With the main business we didn’t get any forrader!” (3.44) and “That hearing didn’t get us any forrader, Your Honor!” (8.91). “Forrader” enjoyed a certain vogue between 1880 and 1940, but by the 1950s had largely dropped out of usage both in British and American English (Google Ngram). “Bit of skirt” (11.118) peaked in American English in the 1930s; it seems to have retained its currency a bit longer in British English, but still seems dated in 1952. “Wench” was still current with John Dickson Carr’s lexicon, but by the 1950s in little use elsewhere. When the Judge addresses Ma Joong and Chiao with “Well, my braves,” he seems to place the action in the early 19th century (Ngram shows a spike in usage in the 1830s).
On the other hand, van Gulik uses English versions of Chinese phrases with ease. Characters enjoy their “noon rice.” They pay with “strings of cash.” When they are berated, they are addressed as “dog’s heads.” Such phrases evoke the strangeness of Chinese custom without distracting the reader from the narrative.
Reviews
Anthony Boucher welcomed the third Dee novel to be published by Harper’s, The Chinese Lake Murders (in a review that also included The Haunted Monastery, imported by Gregory Lounz): “It is hard to praise sufficiently these wondrously enjoyable books, which meticulously re-create an ancient form in terms of modern pleasure” (“Criminals At Large,” New York Times 4 March 1962: 243). James Sandoe was again more reserved: “Robert van Gulik’s enormous Chinese dinners have to be spaced with care lest they gorge one.… I have no present appetite for another of Mr. Gulik’s elaborate and artfully served pastiches.… I am unwilling at this moment to put the excellent Mr. G. to the test of a reluctant stomach, knowing that I might underrate the latest of his dishes” (“Mystery and Suspense,” New York Herald Tribune Book Review 20 May 1962: 15).
Other reviewers were positive, and reiterated the theme of the novelty van Gulik’s conception: “As usual, three cases unwind simultaneously; as usual, the book is a joy” (San Francisco Chronicle, 4 March 1962: 30); “Refreshingly different, as in two previous stories” (Sergeant Cuff, “Criminal Record,” Saturday Review 31 March 1962: 22). Chun-jo Liu, in Pacific Affairs took a more scholarly view: “The reader, upon reading the postscript, will marvel at the analytical power of the mind which constructed the complicated murder cases and will detect the author’s original intention to instruct the outside world on the characteristics and limitations of China’s judicial system which existed until the 1911 revolution” (35.3 Autumn 1962: 290).
4. The Chinese Nail Murders
(25 Chapters)
Prologue: A gentleman of the Ming dynasty sits at night in his garden after writing to his brother far up north in Pei-chow. He is surprised by his brother’s unexpected return. Before departing, the brother relates “three dark mysteries” solved by Judge Dee in Pei-chow. At lunch next morning the gentleman receives a letter from Pei-chow, informing him that his brother had died four days earlier.
Scene: Pei-chow, Judge Dee’s 5th posting. A city in the far north, once on the frontier; now several hundred miles from the barbarian Tartars.
The Magistrate’s Lieutenants: Hoong Liang, Ma Joong, Chaio Tai, Tao Gan
The Cast:
Pan Feng, a curio dealer
Mrs. Pan, wife of Pan Feng
Yeh Pin, a paper merchant
Yeh Tai, his younger brother
Kao, warden of Pan Feng’s quarter
Lan Tao-kuei, boxing champion
Mei Cheng, Lan’s assistant
Loo Ming, cotton merchant
Mrs. Loo, nee Chen, Loo’s wife
Loo Mei-lan, infant daughter
Liao, Master of the Guild of Leatherworkers
Liao Lien-fang, daughter of Liao and fiancée of Yu Kang
Chu Ta-Yuan, wealthy landowner with eight wives
Yü Kang, secretary to Chu Ta-Yuan
Kuo, a pharmacist and coroner
Mrs. Kuo, nee Wang, his wife
“The Case of the Headless Corpse”
Victims: Mrs. Pan and Liao Lien-fang, decapitation
Villain’s motive: sexual frustration
Liao-fang disappears while shopping with her duenna. While Mr. Pan is away, the headless body of his wife, the sister of the Yeh brothers, is discovered on her bed. The Yeh brothers accuse Pan, but Judge Dee accumulates evidence that Pan is innocent, and that the corpse is not what it seems. Clues point Dee toward the killer, whom he surprises into confession in court.
“The Case of the Paper Cat”
Victim: Lan Tao-kuei, boxing champion; poison
Villain’s motive: jealousy
The celebrity boxer, Lan Tao-kuei, is discovered dead in a bath-house. A poisoned cup of tea is found beside him. Before he died, it appears that he tred to arrange the pieces of a “Seven-board” to produce an image that would provide a clue to the muffled person who visited him in the bath-house. Judge Dee connects that image to the pet name of a suspect in another case, and the suspect eventually confesses.
“The Case of the Murdered Merchant”
Victim: Loo Ming, unknown means
Villain’s motive: marital boredom, infatuation
In disguise seeking clues to the murder of Mrs. Pan, Judge Dee encounters a lost girl, Loo Mei-lan; he returns her to her mother, who speaks abusively to the disguised judge. Dee learns that five months prior to his arrival in Pei-chow, Mrs. Loo’s husband had inexplicably died. Judge Dee is confident that Mrs. Loo murdered him, but even under torture, she refuses to confess, and an autopsy discloses no unnatural cause of death. Having accused and tortured an apparently innocent woman and ordered an unjustified desecration of a grave, Judge Dee prepares to submit himself to the juridical principle of “reversed judgment,” which requires that a false accuser suffer the punishment that the wronged person would have received. Then Mrs. Kuo suggests a murder technique to Judge Dee, which he verifies.
The Magistrate’s Lieutenants
As Ju
dge Dee ends the first half of his public career—fifteen years as a District Magistrate—and enters the second half, as President of the Metropolitan Court in the capital, van Gulik imposes upon him a significant loss. In Chapter 15, Sergeant Hoong meets an unnamed person in a wine house and, without any warning, the person strikes a long, thin knife into the Sergeant’s breast, killing him instantly. Dee’s promotion to a position of highest authority in the empire thus coincides with the loss of the old family retainer who had cared for him as a child and has been his confidant in all of his postings as magistrate. Judge Dee weeps at the scene of Hoong’s death.
Scene
Pei-chow, Judge Dee’s final posting as a magistrate, will be revisited only once, in the novella, The Night of the Tiger.
Plot
The Chinese Nail Murders is subtitled, “Judge Dee’s Last Three Cases.” It is not an entirely accurate subtitle. It is certainly not the last Judge Dee novel written by van Gulik. Two years later, he would write his fifth Judge Dee novel, The Chinese Gold Murders (which, to be sure, records Judge Dee’s first three cases), and that would be followed by nine novels, two novellas, and eight short stories. Poets and Murder is in this sense the “last” Dee novel. But neither does the novel relate the last three cases within the fictional career of Judge Dee. One novella, The Night of the Tiger, and two novels, The Willow Pattern and Murder in Canton, would be set after Judge Dee has been appointed President of the Metropolitan Court. They are his final cases as a detective.