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 direcdy 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
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 court was a spacious hall, completely bare except for a few inscriptions suspended on the wall, extolling the majesty of the law. At the back of the hall was the dais, with the bench. Behind the bench stood a large armchair, occupied by the magistrate when the court was in session. To the left and right of the bench stood lower tables, where the scribes sat and noted down all the proceedings. Behind the bench, a doorway gave entrance to the private office of the magistrate-the judge's chambers, as we would say. This doorway was covered by a screen bearing a large image of the unicorn, the ancient Chinese symbol of perspicacity. In his private office the magistrate conducted all routine business when the court was not in session. There were as a rule three sessions
