In Han-yuan the men of the Grand Inquisitor had temporarily taken over the entire administration from Judge Dee. The Censor himself had hurried back to the capital directly after Liu Fei-po's suicide. The sardonic man with the black beard was in charge; he employed Judge Dee as handyman and general adviser. The district was cleaned thoroughly of subversive elements. Kang Choong confessed, and informed against the clerk who had been the agent of the White Lotus inside the tribunal. Besides, there were also some henchmen of Guildmaster Wang, and a dozen or so ruffians whom Liu Fei-po had employed to do the rough work for him. All these criminals were forwarded to the capital.
Since Judge Dee had been suspended from his duties, to his relief he did not have to be present at the execution of Mao Loo. The higher authorities had originally decided that Mao was to be flogged to death. But the judge succeeded in having the sentence mitigated to simple decapitation, pointing out that Mao Loo had not raped Mrs. Djang, and had even defended her when the two robbers on Three Oaks Island wanted to ravish her. The monk was sentenced to ten years' hard labor on the northern frontier.
On the morning that Mao Loo was beheaded there fell a torrential rain. The citizens of Han-yuan said that their tutelary deity wished to wash away the blood that had been shed in his territory. The rain stopped as suddenly as it had begun and the afternoon was cool and sunny.
That evening all executive powers would be officially restored to Judge Dee. Therefore this was his last free afternoon. He decided to go out fishing on the lake.
Ma Joong and Chiao Tai went down to the quay and rented a small, flat-bottomed boat. When they had brought it along the landing stage, Judge Dee arrived on foot, wearing a large round sun hat on his head. He was accompanied by Sergeant Hoong and Tao Gan; the latter carried the fishing tackle.
When all had entered the boat, Ma Joong stood himself in the stern and took hold of the oar. Slowly the boat moved out over the rippling waves. They all silently enjoyed for some time the fresh breeze over the water.
Suddenly Judge Dee spoke.
"I found it quite interesting this last week to watch how our secret service men operate. That fellow with the short beard-I still don't know who or what he really is!-was rather reserved at first, but later he thawed somewhat, and allowed me to see the more important documents. He is an excellent investigator, thorough and systematic. I have learned much from him. But he has been keeping me so busy that now is the first time that I can have a quiet chat with all of you!"
The judge let his hand hang into the cool water. He pursued:
"Yesterday I went to see Han Yung-han; he was still upset about the severe questioning he underwent, but even more about the fact
JUDGE DEE GOES FISHING WITH HIS LIEUTENANTS
that Han-yuan, his own city, had been the center of a treacherous plot! He never knew about the crypt his ancestor had built under the house, but our bearded friend refused to believe that. He questioned Han two days in succession and was becoming quite nasty over it. At last, however, Han was set free because I pointed out that he had immediately reported to me his having been abducted by the White Lotus, despite their dire threats. Han was very grateful and I therefore took the opportunity of informing him that Liang Fen and his daughter were in love with each other. First Han said indignantly that Liang Fen was not good enough for his daughter, but later he gave in and said he would not object to their betrothal. Liang Fen is an honest, serious young fellow, and Willow Down a charming girl, so I think that it'll be a successful marriage."
"But didn't Han have an affair with the courtesan Almond Blossom?" the sergeant asked.
Judge Dee smiled ruefully.
"I must frankly confess," he said, "that I have judged Han wrongly all through. He is a very old-fashioned, slightly bigoted and rather narrow-minded man, good at heart but not too bright. In fact, not a very impressive personality. No, he never had an affair with the dead dancer. She, however, was a great personality! Great in her love-and in her hate. Look; you can just see in the distance over there, among the green trees of the Willow Quarter, the white marble pillars of the memorial arch that they are erecting there on His Majesty's august command. The inscription will read: 'Example of loyalty to State and Family.'"
They were well out on the lake now. The judge cast out his line. Suddenly he quickly drew it in again. Ma Joong cursed. He also had seen the large, dark shadow that passed through the green water, just underneath the boat. There was a flash of two small, glowing eyes.
"Here we shan't catch anything!" Judge Dee remarked testily. "Those brutes will have chased away all the fish! Look, there goes another one!" Noticing the frightened look of his four companions, he went on: "I had surmised all along that it was those huge tortoises that explained the disappearance of the bodies of those unfortunate people who drowned in the lake. Once those animals have acquired a taste for human flesh… But don't be afraid, they'll never attack live people. Take her farther out, Ma Joong; ahead we'll have a better chance."
Ma Joong started to scull vigorously. The judge folded his arms in his sleeves, and looked pensively at the town on the distant bank.
"When did Your Honor discover that Liu Fei-po had murdered the old Councilor and usurped his place?" Sergeant Hoong asked.
"Only at the very last moment," Judge Dee replied. "I mean that night I passed without sleep at my desk, after I had sent Ma Joong and Chiao Tai to the capital. The case of the spendthrift Councilor, however, was but a side issue; the central problem was that of the dead dancer. And that case really started several years back, with Liu Fei-po's thwarted ambitions. But during the last phase, which we witnessed here in Han-yuan, the political plans of Liu were relegated to the background by his emotional relation to two women, namely his daughter, Moon Fairy, and his paramour, Almond Blossom. That relation is the kernel of this case: when I had understood that point, all the rest at once became crystal clear.
"Liu Fei-po was a man of extraordinary talents, courageous, resourceful, energetic, a born leader. But his failing to pass the literary examination wounded his pride, and his subsequent great success in the business world could never heal that wound. It festered on, and culminated in a bitter resentment against our government.
"An accidental occurrence roused his ambition to revive the old White Lotus movement, in order to overthrow our Imperial House and found himself a new dynasty. Once he happened to purchase in a curio shop in the capital and old manuscript, written by Hermit Han, which contained his plan for the secret crypt. The Grand Inquisitor discovered this manuscript among Liu's papers, in his residence in the capital. Hermit Han states there that he planned to build such a crypt, as a haven of refuge for his descendants in turbulent times. He says he planned to hide there his entire treasure, twenty boxes with gold bars; to dig there a well, and to store there dried foodstuffs. The manuscript ends with a design for the letter lock of the entrance to the crypt, in the altar in the Buddhist Chapel. And the Hermit appended a note to the effect that the secret should be transmitted in the Han family, from father to eldest son.
"When he had read this, Liu probably began by assuming it only represented the vagaries of an old man's mind. But he decided that it might be worthwhile to visit Han-yuan, in order to verify whether Hermit Han perhaps actually executed his plan. Liu arranged for Han Yung-han to invite him to stay in his house for a week or so. Then Liu found out that Han knew nothing about his ancestor's plans. Han only knew about Hermit Han's instruction that the Buddhist Chapel should never be closed, and that a lamp should be kept burning there always. Han thought that this was a proof of his ancestor's piety, but of course the Hermit's real intention was that his descendants should have access to the secret entrance at all times of day and night, to cope with any sudden emergency. One night Liu must have paid a secret visit to the chapel. Then he found that the crypt and everything else really existed, just as the Hermit had described. Liu must have realized that the sudden demise of the old Hermit had prevented him from divulging the sec
ret to his eldest son, Han Yung-han's grandfather. But the printer of the chess handbook published the manuscript exactly according to Hermit Han's draft, including the last page with the enigmatical chess problem. No one except Liu Fei-po, and probably the dead dancer, ever knew that the problem was nothing but the key to the letter lock in the Buddhist Chapel."
"The Hermit was an exceedingly clever man!" Tao Gan exclaimed. "The fact that the chess problem was published guaranteed that this key would never be lost; yet no uninitiated person could ever guess its real meaning!"
"Indeed," Judge Dee said, 'Hermit Han was a wise and very learned man, a man I would have liked to have met! But to continue. Now Liu Fei-po had in the Han treasure the enormous capital needed for organizing a nationwide conspiracy, and at the same time he had at his disposal an ideal place to serve as secret headquarters and council room of the movement. He built a villa on the empty lot in between the Han mansion and the residence of Councilor Liang, and had four workmen make the subterranean passage connecting the crypt with his own garden. I assume that thereafter Liu himself killed the four unfortunate workmen, since we found the bones of four men in the secret passage.
"However, as the plot expanded, Liu's expenses increased. He had to send substantial bribes to corrupt officials; he had to pay bandit leaders and supply them and their men with arms. Liu's own capital and the Hermit's treasure melted away, and he had to look for other sources of income. Then he conceived the plan to appropriate the wealth of Councilor Liang. He used to walk with the old man in his garden, and it was easy for Liu to make himself familiar with the Councilor's habits and those of his small household. About half a year ago he must have lured the old man into the secret passage, and there murdered him. He placed the body in a coffin there, where Tao Gan and I found it. From that time on the 'Councilor' became ill, his eyes grew worse, he became forgetful, and began to pass the greater part of his time in his bedroom. All this camouflage enabled Liu Fei-po to play his double role. He must have disguised himself in the crypt, then crept through his own garden into the Councilor's house. The rooms occupied by the secretary, Liang Fen, were located at the other end of the compound, and the old couple who acted as servants were really in their dotage; thus everything was favorable for his impersonation. Sometimes, however, unforeseen circumstances obliged him to act his part longer than anticipated. This, together with Liu's attending meetings of the White Lotus council in the crypt, explain his 'vanishing tricks,' which began to attract the attention of the members of his household-as related by the palanquin bearer to Sergeant Hoong.
"Together with his henchman Wan I-fan, Liu made a careful study of the Councilor's properties, and then they began to sell out his estates. In this manner Liu obtained the funds he needed for completing the preparations for the insurrection. Everything went well. He began to consult with his confederates about a suitable time for action. Just then, however, there came trouble. It started in Liu's private life. This brings us to the courtesan Almond Blossom, or, to call her by her real name, Miss Fan Ho-i."
The boat was lying still now. Ma Joong had seated himself, cross-legged, in the stern. He and the three others listened intently to the judge. Judge Dee pushed the sun hat back from his forehead. Then he spoke.
"The conspiracy had spread also to Shansi Province. A landowner in Ping-yang, called Fan, became a member. But later he repented, and decided to denounce the plot to the authorities. The White Lotus came to know about his plan. He was forced to commit suicide, after they had compelled him to sign a forged document in which he confessed to having commited a crime against the State. All his possessions fell into the hands of the White Lotus; his widow, his daughter, Ho-i, and his infant son were reduced to the state of beggars. His daughter thereupon sold herself as a courtesan. With the money thus obtained her mother could purchase a small farm in Ping-yang, and later Almond Blossom sent her regularly the greater part of her earnings, for the education of her small brother. These data I found in the report which the secret agents sent in yesterday from Ping-yang, after they had apprehended and questioned the local leaders of the White Lotus.
"The rest of her story can be easily reconstructed. Before her father died he must have told her something about the plot, including that the headquarters were located in Han-yuan, and that Liu Fei-po was the chief. The courageous and loyal girl then resolved to avenge her father, and to expose the conspiracy. That is evidently why she insisted upon being resold in Han-yuan, and why she accepted Liu Fei-po as her lover. Her aim was to extract from him the secrets of the White Lotus, then to denounce him and his fellow plotters to the authorities.
"She was a woman of a strange, haunting beauty, and she had an exceptionally strong personality. I think that her family was one of those for which Ping-yang is well known, where there are transmitted from mother to daughter abstruse secrets regarding the exercise of occult powers. Yet I doubt whether she would have succeeded in binding such an utterly egoistic and ambitious man as Liu Fei-po to her, were it not that she bore a striking resemblance to Moon Fairy, Liu's own daughter.
"I don't pretend, my friends, to be able to understand and analyze the dark vagaries of human passion. I confine myself to stating that Liu's love for his daughter was mingled with a feeling that, according to our sacred social order, a man may harbor only for a woman not related to him by the ties of blood. Liu's passionate love for his daughter was the only vulnerable spot in his cruel, cold soul. He must have fought his guilty passion with all his might; his daughter never knew about it. I don't know how much this passion affected his relation with his wives, but I wouldn't be surprised if his home life had been a very strained and unhappy one. However this may be, his love affair with the courtesan must have afforded Liu an escape from the conflict that was raging in his soul, and that gave the liaison a depth of passion that Liu could probably never have experienced with any other woman.
"During their secret meetings-it has now transpired that these took place in a pavilion in the garden of Guildmaster Wang -Almond Blossom learned from her lover several facts about the White Lotus, including the secret meaning of the chess problem. Liu wrote her love letters. He had to give vent to his obsessing passion, even in writing. But he was sufficiently clever not to write those letters in his own hand. He imitated that of Liang Fen, the Councilor's secretary, with which he had become familiar through his study of the Councilor's financial documents. Heaven knows what perverse whim made Liu sign those love letters with the pen name of Candidate Djang, his daughter's lover. I repeat, those dark impulses are beyond my comprehension.
"Liu had never intended his daughter to marry. He couldn't bear the thought that she would ever leave him and be possessed by another man. When she fell in love with Candidate Djang, Liu violently opposed the match and ordered his henchman Wan I-fan to slander Dr. Djang, to give him a valid reason for withholding his permission. But then Moon Fairy fell into a decline. Liu couldn't bear to see her so unhappy so, with what must have been a tremendous effort, he gave his consent. We may safely assume that the impending separation from Moon Fairy distressed Liu greatly. Moreover, his love letters to the dancer show that at the same time he began to suspect her real intentions, because of her eagerness to obtain information on the White Lotus. He decided to break off their liaison. Since he was thus about to lose the two women he loved, we can easily imagine his perturbed state of mind. On top of that, his financial worries increased daily. In his role of 'Councilor' he had sold the greater part of the Liang estates, and the day set for the outbreak of the rebellion was approaching. He needed money, much money, and he needed it quickly. Therefore he took the capital of his confederate, Guildmaster Wang, and he ordered Kang Choong to persuade his elder brother to extend a substantial loan to Wan I-fan. I think this about sums up the situation as it existed about two months ago, shortly after our arrival here in Han-yuan."
Judge Dee paused a moment. Tao Gan asked:
"How did Your Honor discover that Kang Choong was a member
of the White Lotus!"
"Only because he had gone to so much trouble to secure the loan," the judge answered. "It had at once struck me as strange that an experienced businessman such as Kang Choong should advise giving a large loan to such a dubious small promoter as Wan I-fan. As soon as I had understood that Wan I-fan must be a member of the conspiracy, I knew that Kang Choong must be concerned in it also. Liu Fei-po's last, frantic efforts to obtain ready cash supplied me with an important clue, which, together with Liu's 'disappearances' and the sudden illness of Councilor Liang, led me to the discovery of the impersonation, I connected the queer thirst for gold of the old Councilor with the need for money of the White Lotus member Wang. Since the Councilor, also because of his advanced age, was above suspicion, there was but one possible conclusion."
Tao Gan nodded. He pulled slowly at the three hairs that sprouted from his left cheek. Judge Dee continued:
"Now I come to the murder of the courtesan-a most complicated affair that became clear to me only at the very last moment. Moon Fairy was married to Candidate Djang, and the next day the banquet on the flower boat took place. Since Liu suspected the dancer, he watched her all the time that night. When she, standing between Han and me, spoke to me about the plot, Liu read the words from her lips. But he wrongly thought that she was addressing Han."
"But we had agreed that such a mistake was impossible," Sergeant Hoong interrupted. "She addressed you as Your Honor!"
"I ought to have seen through that sooner!" Judge Dee said with a wan smile. "Remember that she wasn't looking at me when she spoke, and that she spoke fast. Therefore Liu Fei-po misread 'Your Honor' as 'Yung-han,' Han's personal name! This must have put Liu in a cold rage: his mistress not only planned to betray him, but she wanted to do so to a secret rival in love, Han Yung-han! For how could he explain her addressing Han by his personal name otherwise than that she had intimate relations with him? That explains the nasty way Liu employed the next day to close Han's mouth by abducting and threatening him. And it also explains why Liu's very last words before he plunged the dagger in his throat were a sneer at the expense of his supposed rival in love. Fortunately, the dancer's remark on chess had escaped Liu, for at that moment Anemone returned to our table and obstructed Liu's line of vision. If Liu had caught that second remark too, he would doubtless have evacuated his secret headquarters in the crypt at once!
The Chinese LakeMurders Page 22
