The senior scribe read his notes aloud and Candidate
'Wang affirmed that they represented faithfully what he had said.
'Make him affix his thumb-mark!' Judge Dee ordered the constables.
The constables again pulled Wang to his feet roughly, pressed his thumb on the wet inkstone and told him to affix his mark on the paper that Judge Dee had pushed to the edge of the bench.
While Wang tremblingly obeyed, the judge noticed that he had the thin, cultivated hands of the scholar, along with the long nails affected by the literary class.
'Take the accused back to the jail!' Judge Dee shouted. Then he rose, and angrily shaking his long sleeves he left the dais. When he passed through the door leading to his private office, he heard the crowd of spectators start murmuring behind him.
'Clear the Court, clear the Court!' the headman of the constables shouted. 'This is no theatre where you can linger after the performance! Get a move on, do you expect the constables to serve you tea and cakes?'
When the last spectator had been pushed out of the hall, the headman moodily faced his subordinates.
'What a time we are heading for!' he exclaimed. 'A stupid judge who is also lazy-that is the kind of magistrate we devoutly pray for every day. But let August Heaven spare me service under a judge who is stupid and industrious at the same time! And a curmudgeon to boot. What a calamity!'
'Why did His Excellency not apply torture?' a young constable asked. 'That weak bookworm would have confessed at the first crack of the whip, to say nothing of crushing his hands and ankles in the screws. This case could have been over and done with!'
Another added:
'What is the use of these dilatory tactics? That fellow Wang is as poor as a rat in the gutter. There is no hope of getting a bribe out of him.'
'Sheer slowness of wit, that is what it is!' the headman said disgustedly. 'Wang's guilt is as clear as crystal and yet His Excellency wants to 'verify points.' Well, let us go to the kitchen and fill our rice bowls before those greedy guards eat everything.'
Meanwhile Judge Dee had changed into a simple brown robe, and had seated himself in the big arm-chair behind the desk in his private office. With a contented smile he sipped the tea that Chiao Tai had poured out for him.
Sergeant Hoong entered.
'Why are you looking so dejected, Sergeant?' the judge asked him…
Sergeant Hoong shook his head.
'I just mingled with the crowd outside the tribunal,' he said, 'and listened to their talk. If I may speak frankly, Your Honour, they are unfavourably impressed by this first hearing of the case. They can see no point in the interrogation. They opine that Your Honour failed to grasp the main issue, namely to make Wang confess his crime.'
'Sergeant,' Judge Dee said, 'if I did not know so well that your remarks are motivated only by your concern about my success as a magistrate, I would scold you severely. Our August Sovereign has appointed me to dispense justice, not to please the crowd!'
Judge Dee turned to Chiao Tai and said:
'Tell that Warden Gao to come here!'
When Chiao Tai had gone, Sergeant Hoong asked:
'Did Your Honour attach so much importance to Wang's tale about the nightwatch because you think that those men are connected with this crime?'
Judge Dee shook his head.
'No,' he said, 'not for that reason. Even without having learned of the incident which Candidate Wang related today, my colleague Judge Feng closely questioned the nightwatch, as a matter of routine investigation of everyone who had been near the scene of the crime. Their headman was able to prove that neither he nor his two companions had had anything to do with it.'
Chiao Tai came back with Warden Gao, who bowed deeply before the magistrate.
Judge Dee looked sourly at him and said:
'So you are the warden in whose quarter this disgraceful affair took place. Don't you know that you are responsible for whatever irregularities occur there? Be more diligent about your duties! Make rounds day and night and don't waste the Government's time in inns and gambling dens!'
The warden hastily knelt down, knocking his head on the floor three times. Judge Dee continued:
'Now you shall lead us to Half Moon Street, so that we can have a look at the scene of the crime. I only wish to obtain a general impression. Apart from yourself I need only Chiao Tai and four constables. I shall go incognito, Sergeant Hoong will act as the leader of our party.'
Judge Dee put on a small black cap and they left the tribunal by the western side door, Chiao Tai and Warden Gao leading the way with the four constables bringing up the rear.
They first walked along the main street in a southern direction, till they came to the back wall of the Temple of the City God. There they turned west, and soon saw the green glazed tiles of the Temple of Confucius on their right. They crossed the bridge over the river that crosses the western section of the city from north to south. Here the pavement ended, they found themselves in the quarter of poor people. The warden turned left into a street lined on both sides with small shops and dilapidated houses, then entered a narrow, curved alley. This turned out to be Half Moon Street. Warden Gao showed them the shop of Butcher Hsiao.
As they stood in front of the shop, a crowd of onlookers gathered. Warden Gao shouted:
'These are officials of the tribunal investigating the scene of the crime on His Excellency's orders. Get a move on! Don't interfere with officials in the execution of their duty!'
Judge Dee noted that the shop stood on the corner of a very narrow side street and that its sidewall had no windows. The godown stood about ten feet behind it. The window of the garret where the girl had lived was visible a few feet above the top of the wall that connected the shop with the godown. On the opposite side of the alley rose the high, blind sidewall of the guild house on the other corner. Turning round and looking towards the street Judge Dee saw that Tailor Loong's shop was located exactly opposite the entrance of the alley. From the attic of the tailor shop one could see obliquely into the alley and obtain a view of the girl's window.
While Sergeant Hoong was asking Warden Gao some routine questions Judge Dee said to Chiao Tai: 'Try to climb up to that window!' Chiao Tai smiled, tucked the slips of his robe in his belt and jumped up, grasping the top of the wall. He pulled himself up and found a hold for his right foot in a hole in the wall where a few bricks had dropped out. Then he raised himself slowly, pressing his body close to the wall, till he could put his hand on the window-sill. Pulling himself up again, he put his leg over the sill, and climbed inside.
Judge Dee nodded from below. Chiao Tai swung himself over the window-sill. He hung for a moment by his hands, then let himself drop down the five feet or so to the ground, where he landed with hardly a sound by using a boxer trick known as 'a butterfly descending on a flower.'
Warden Gao wanted to show them the victim's room, but Judge Dee shook his head to Sergeant Hoong, who said curtly:
'We have seen what we came to see. Let us return.'
A leisurely walk took them back to the tribunal.
After the warden had respectfully taken his leave, Judge Dee said to the sergeant:
'What I saw just now has confirmed my suspicions. Have Ma Joong called here!'
After a while Ma Joong entered, and bowed to the judge.
'Ma Joong,' Judge Dee said, 'I must charge you with a difficult and probably a dangerous job.'
Ma Joong's face lit up and he said eagerly:
'I am at your service, Your Honour!'
'I order you,' Judge Dee said, 'to disguise yourself as a low-class vagrant bully. You will frequent the haunts of the scum of this city and try
