“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!
“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 directly 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 Chinese Lake Murders Page 23
