there at once. I want to know what he has been doing these last days. And if he should have male relatives, I want them brought to the tribunal for questioning.'
Having thus spoken, the judge rapped the table and declared the session closed.
Before leaving the hall he walked over to the coffin and scrutinized its inside. There were no bloodstains. Then he examined the floor all around it, but among the confused mass of footprints in the dust he could discover no smudges or other signs of blood having been wiped up there. Evidently the carpenter had been killed somewhere else, and his body brought to the hall and placed inside the coffin after the blood had already coagulated. He took leave of the company and left the hall, followed by Sergeant Hoong.
Judge Dee remained silent all the way back. But when he was in his private office and Hoong had helped him change into a comfortable house robe, his morose mood left him. As he sat down behind his desk he said with a smile:
'Well, Hoong, plenty of problems to solve! By the way, I am glad that I placed the professor under house arrest. Look what the carpenter carried in his sleeve!'
He pushed the scrap of paper over to Hoong, who exclaimed, astonished:
'The name and address of Dr. Djang are scribbled here, Your Honor!'
'Yes,' Judge Dee said with satisfaction, 'our learned doctor apparently overlooked that! Let me now see that list you had him draw up, Hoong.'
The sergeant took a folded piece of paper from his sleeve. As he handed it to the judge he said dejectedly:
'As far as I can see, Your Honor, his handwriting is quite different from that of the love letters.'
'You are right,' the judge said. 'There isn't the slightest resemblance.' He threw the sheet on the table and continued: 'When you have had your noon rice, Hoong, you might try to locate in the chancery a few samples of the handwriting of Liu, Han, Wang and Soo; all of them will have sent at one time or another letters to the tribunal.' He took two of his large red official visiting cards from the drawer and gave them to the sergeant, adding: 'Have these cards forwarded to Han Yung-han and Councilor Liang, with the message that I shall pay them a visit this afternoon.'
When Judge Dee rose the sergeant asked:
'What on earth could have happened to the corpse of Mrs. Djang, Your Honor?'
'It is no use, Hoong,' the judge replied, 'to ponder over a puzzle as long as all pertaining pieces have not yet been assembled. I shall now put that entire problem out of my mind. I am going to eat my noon rice in my own house, and have a look how my wives and children are getting on. The other day my Third Lady told me that my two sons are already writing quite nice essays. But they're a couple of rascals, I tell you!'
Late in the afternoon, when Judge Dee came back to his private office, he found Sergeant Hoong and Ma Joong standing by his desk, bent over several sheets of paper. Hoong looked up and said:
'Here we have samples of the handwriting of our four suspects, Your Honor. But none of them resembles that of the dancer's letters.'
Judge Dee sat down and carefully compared the various letters. After a while he said:
'No, there's nothing there! Liu Fei-po is the only one whose brush stroke reminds me a bit of that of the Student of the Bamboo Grove. I could imagine that Liu disguised his hand when he wrote those love letters. Our writing brush is a very sensitive instrument. It is very difficult indeed not to betray one's manner of handling it, even if one uses a different type of writing.'
'Liu Fei-po could have known Candidate Djang's pen name through his daughter, Your Honor!' the sergeant said eagerly, 'and used it for signing his letters for want of a better!'
'Yes,' the judge said pensively. 'I must get to know more about Liu Fei-po. That is one of the subjects I plan to raise with Han and the Councilor; they will be able to tell me more about him. Well, Ma Joong, what did you learn about the carpenter?'
Ma Joong sadly shook his large head.
'There's not much to be found out there, Your Honor! Mao Yuan lives in a hovel way down near the lake, near the fish market. There's only his old woman; you have never seen such an ugly old harpy! She hadn't been worrying at all about her husband's absence, because when he was on a job he would often stay away several days. And I don't blame the fellow either, cursed as he is with a woman like that! Well, three days ago he left in the morning saying that he was going to the house of Dr. Djang to repair some furniture for the coming wedding feast. He told his wife he would find a place to sleep in the servants' quarters there, for the job would take several days. That was the last she saw of him!'
Ma Joong pulled a face and went on:
'When I told his pleasant mate the sad news, she only said that she had predicted long before that her old man would come to a bad end, because he always went to wine houses and gambling dens with his cousin Mao Loo. Then she asked for the blood money!'
'What an impious woman!' Judge Dee exclaimed angrily.
'I told her,' Ma Joong said, 'that she couldn't get that before the murderer had been caught and convicted. She started to call me names and accused me of having pocketed the money! I hurriedly left the harridan, and went to make inquiries in the neighborhood. The people there say that Mao Yuan was a good-natured, hard-working fellow and no one blames him for drinking a bit too much on occasion, for married to a woman like that a man needs some consolation. But they added that his cousin Mao Loo is a real bad lot. He is also a carpenter by profession, but he has no fixed place to live. He roams all over the district looking for odd jobs in wealthy houses, and pilfers there what he can. He spends all his money drinking and gambling. Of late no one has seen him in that neighborhood. There's a rumor that he was expelled from the Carpenters' Guild because he wounded another carpenter with a knife during a drunken brawl. Mao Yuan had no other male relatives.'
Judge Dee slowly sipped his tea. Then he wiped off his mustache and said:
'You did well, Ma Joong! We know now at least the meaning of that scrap of paper we found in the sleeve of the murdered man. You'd better go now to the professor's residence and find out together with Chiao Tai, who is watching there, when Mao Yuan arrived in Dr. Djang's house, what work he did, and when exactly he left there. Also keep an eye on that neighborhood; perhaps you may yet find that weird fellow who watched me through the window.' He rose and continued to the sergeant: 'While I am away, Hoong, you can go to the street where Liu Fei-po lives and have a look around there. Try to collect in the shops in that neighborhood some gossip about him and his household. He is the complainant in the case of Liu versus Djang, but at the same time he is one of our main suspects in the case of the murdered dancer!'
He emptied his teacup and walked across the courtyard to the gatehouse where his palanquin stood waiting for him.
In the street outside it was still quite hot. Fortunately, the Han mansion was not far from the tribunal.
Han Yung-han stood inside the monumental gate waiting for the judge. After the exchange of the usual courtesies he led his guest into a dimly lit hall cooled by two round copper basins loaded with blocks of ice. Han made Judge Dee sit down in a capacious armchair next to the tea table. As he busied himself giving orders for tea and refreshments to the obsequious steward, the judge looked round. He estimated that the house was well over a hundred years old. The wood of the heavy pillars and of the carved roof-beams above was blackened by age, and the scroll paintings decorating the walls had acquired a mellow tinge of old ivory. The hall was pervaded by an atmosphere of quiet distinction.
After fragrant tea had been served in antique cups of eggshell porcelain, Han cleared his throat and said with stiff dignity:
'I offer Your Honor my humble apologies for my unseemly behavior last night.'
'It was a most unusual situation,' Judge Dee said with a smile. 'Let's forget about it! Tell me, how many sons do you have?'
'I have only a daughter,' Han replied coldly.
There was an awkward pause; it had not been a very fortunate opening. But the judge reflected that he could hardly be blamed. One would expect a man of Han's status, with many wives and concubines, to have some sons. He continued unabashed:
'I'd better tell you frankly that I am completely baffled by that murder on the flower boat, and that queer case of Liu Fei-po's daughter. I hope you'll kindly let me have your opinion on the character and background of the persons connected with these two cases.'
