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
