Poisoned Bride and Other Judge Dee Mysteries (19 page)

Both Candidate Hoo and his mother knocked their heads on the floor repeatedly to show their gratitude, exclaiming that the judge had saved Candidate Hoo’s life.

Judge Dee dismissed them and retired to his private office to deal with some documents that had come in. The constables made preparations for his departure for Huang-hua Village in the afternoon.

In the meantime Sergeant Hoong had returned to Huang-hua Village the night before and explained the judge’s instructions to Warden Ho Kai. In the morning they went to Doctor Tang’s house together.

Warden Ho Kai knocked and an old servant came to open the door. He gave them a surly look and asked what they wanted. Warden Ho exclaimed:

“Well, if it isn’t old Mr. Djoo! Don’t you know the man who eats his rice from the taxes you pay?” The old servant recognised the warden, and said with a smile: “Warden Ho, what brings you here? My master is still asleep”. Warden Ho gave the sergeant a wink and both quickly entered the courtyard. The old servant crossed the second courtyard. The warden and the sergeant followed him until they arrived in front of the library. There the sergeant said to Warden Ho Kai:

“What are you waiting for? Since Doctor Tang is at Home, let us have him roused, so that I can deliver my message”.

The old servant, knowing from the sergeant’s tone that he was a servant of the tribunal, hastened to say:

“Mr. Constable, what do you want to ask my master? Please tell me. I shall go and inform him.” The warden said:

“This gentleman is the sergeant of the tribunal in Chang-ping. He brings the calling card of His Excellency Judge Dee. He has come to invite Doctor Tang to pay a visit to the tribunal for a consultation about an official matter.”

The old servant received Judge Dee’s visiting card respectfully in two hands and walked round the library. Warden Ho followed him, giving a sign to Sergeant Hoong to remain. Behind the library was a smaller courtyard with three rooms in back of it. He noticed that the room on the extreme left was right next to Mr. Djou’s room in the Bee house.

Warden Ho was just thinking that this fitted in exactly with their theory, when the door of the room on left opened and a young man of about 25 appeared. He was tall and slender, and had the dignified bearing of the son of a noble family. His features were regular. One could indeed call him a very handsome youngster. He quickly asked the old servant: “Who is this man?”

“This is a curious affair,” the old servant answered. “Our master, Doctor Tang, hardly ever leaves his house. He spends all his time on his studies and on the instruction of his disciples. Now why should His Excellency, Judge Dee want to see him?”

The mentioning of the name of the judge seemed to startle the young man considerably. He said hurriedly: “Well, why don’t you tell this gentleman that Doctor Tang has renounced all worldly affairs and cannot be bothered with visits to the tribunal?”

Warden Ho Kai thought that if it came to looking for the lover of the beautiful Mrs. Djou, this handsome young fellow, who seemed to live in the room adjoining hers, would exactly fit the role. He said:

“What might be your honourable name, young Sir? Are you living here in this compound? To tell you the truth, His Excellency has heard that Doctor Tang not only is a scholar of wide learning, but also a man of noble character. He therefore wants to consult with him about the organisation of some charitable enterprise in the district”.

In the mean time the old servant had entered the library, and they heard somebody inside saying:

“You know that yesterday evening I explained the Classics to my disciples till a very late hour. Why do you come as early as this to disturb me?”

After the old servant had said something about Judge Dee and the tribunal, the voice continued:

“Here, take this visiting card of mine and ask the messenger to inform His Excellency respectfully that I am living in complete retirement, devoting myself entirely to my literary studies. I don’t wish to have anything to do with social work. If there is something to be organised, there are many among the local gentry in Chang-ping who will be glad to help, and who are much better qualified for such work than I”.

The old servant came out again, closing the door carefully behind him and repeated to the warden what Doctor Tang had said.

Sergeant Hoong had heard all this, standing behind the corner of the library. He now came forward, and said to the warden:

“Well, let us return quickly to the tribunal, to report to His Excellency Doctor Tang’s answer. Perhaps the judge will visit Doctor Tang personally and explain matters to him.”

The young man entered his room again. The old servant conducted the visitors to the front gate.

As soon as they were outside in the street, Warden Ho Kai said to the sergeant:

“Did you notice that young man there? As soon as I mentioned the name of His Excellency, I saw him change colour. Furthermore his room is right next to the Bee house. Why don’t you rush back to report to the judge, while I stay here and try to find out that young man’s name?”

The sergeant thought that this was a good idea and hastened back to the city.

Judge Dee was most content with what he heard. He thought that affairs in the compound of that learned doctor were highly suspicious. He resolved to go there himself at once, before somebody there became alarmed.

He ascended his palanquin, and hastened to Huang-hua Village, together with his four trusted lieutenants. They arrived as night was falling. Judge Dee took rooms in the same hostel where they had stayed before.

Having refreshed himself, Judge Dee called Ma Joong to his room and gave him the following instructions:

“You accompany the sergeant to Doctor Tang’s house and secretly climb on the roof. Try to see what is going on in the library and especially in the room of that young man, whose room adjoins Mrs. Djou’s bedroom. After you have gone Chiao Tai and Tao Gan shall go there too and watch the front gates of both houses. Sergeant Hoong shall tell you more on the way”.

Ma Joong set out with the sergeant on the dark street. As they walked through the narrow alleys of the village, Sergeant Hoong said:

“Now listen to His Excellency’s secret instructions. In the first place, I am to stress to you that this night our judge expects to solve the key problem of this case. The role he wants you to play is not a very pleasant one, but our judge said that it was absolutely necessary for the success of his plan, and”

“Stop beating about the bush”, Ma Joong interrupted him, “You and I are loyal servants of His Excellency. He has but to say the word and we obey. Have we not been eating his rice for more than six years?”

“Our judge’s idea”, the sergeant said, “is that somehow or other we must find the connection between that young man’s room, and the adjoining house of Mrs. Bee. Together with Tao Gan, I have been watching both houses from the outside for a number of days. That has proved completely useless. Now the only way to find out whether or not a secret passage exists, is for you to burgle that young man’s room. It does not matter if you are discovered afterwards. The judge has taken measures to cope with such event. Probably you shall have to play the role of a captured thief for a while. The judge thought that you would perhaps object to this.”

Ma Joong, however, far from being reluctant to do this job. was full of enthusiasm and wanted to go there at once.

But the sergeant pointed out that it was too early. There were still many people walking on the street. So they first went to the house of Warden Ho Kai and talked for a while. When the second nightwatch had sounded, they set out for Doctor Tang’s house. Upon arrival, Ma Joong asked the sergeant to watch on the corner, while he took off his jacket and his long robe. Clad only in his under garments, he jumped and just clutched the top of the outer wall. Hoisting himself up, he crawled like a snake on its belly along the wall to the place where it connected with the roof of the doctor’s library. Ma Joong crept slowly down to the edge of the roof, and, gripping the protruding eaves, he bent his head over the edge, until he could see through the window.He saw a large room, well lighted by a number of candles. Three of the walls were lined with bookshelves. Behind a high writing desk an old gentleman was reading aloud from a book. Five young men were sitting in a semicircle listening intently; these were evidently the doctor’s disciples. It all looked very dignified and eminently respectable to Ma Joong.

He left the roof and crawled further along the wall till he reached the buildings at the back of the courtyard. He soon found himself on the wall that separated the young man’s room from that of Mrs. Djou. Looking around he was greatly startled at the sight of a dark shape huddled on the roof of Mrs. Bee’s house. Suddenly, however, he heard a low whistle. He then knew that that shape was nobody but the sergeant, who had climbed up there in the mean time.

Ma Joong gave him a sign which meant that he should stay where he was. Then he climbed on the roof of the young man’s room. Creeping down the sloping roof, he again edged forward, and by craning his head, he could just look inside through a narrow window. He saw a clean room, simply furnished, but in elegant taste, lighted by one candle. Against the west wall there was a large couch. In front of the window was a square table of carved blackwood and two chairs. A young man was sitting at the table, next to the candle. As far as Ma Joong could see, his features answered Sergeant Hoong’s description of the young man who had appeared when he and the warden paid their first visit to the doctor’s house. He had an open book in front of him, but he was not reading. He just sat there looking straight in front of him, apparently deep in thought. After a while he rose, and, opening the door of his room, looked intently at the lighted windows of the library across the courtyard. Then he closed the door, sat down again, and turned to the couch against the east wall. He looked at that couch for a considerable time, as though he had never seen it before, and then started mumbling something by himself.

Ma Joong saw the door of the library open. A young man came out, went straight to the room which Ma Joong was observing. The student knocked on the door, and called out: “Mr. Hsu, the master wants to see you”.

As soon as he had heard that the young man was called Hsu, Ma Joong said to himself: “So this is indeed our man!” In high spirits he left his precarious position, and crawled back to the wall. Crouching there he saw Hsu come out of his room and cross the courtyard to the library with the other student.

When they had gone in there, Ma Joong jumped from the wall, using the wrestler’s trick called “a butterfly alighting on a flower”. He landed on the ground noiselessly, and swiftly went to the window of the room in the middle. Looking in, he saw the old servant sitting at a table, sleeping with his head on his folded arms. Ma Joong slowly opened the door and, tiptoeing inside, blew out the candle that was standing on the table.

He opened the door that connected this room with that of the young man Hsu and went inside, quickly closing the door behind him. With one glance he imprinted the location of the pieces of furniture in his mind. Then he blew out the candle. He walked over to the east wall in the pitch darkness and tapped its surface around the couch. But nowhere was there a hollow sound. Then he tried the floor in front, but with the same negative result. He lifted the bed curtains and crept underneath the couch. Tapping the stone floor, he suddenly noticed that one spot produced a different sound. He slowly felt the stone flags and found that four of them seemed slightly raised in comparison to the others. Upon further investigation they definitely produced a hollow sound.

“This”, Ma Joong thought, “must be the trapdoor of a secret underground passage. But how does it open?”

He again felt the raised edge very carefully with his finger tips, but could find no groove or hinge. Stretching out both hands, he groped in the dark. Suddenly his right hand touched a piece of rope which dangled behind the couch. Thinking that this rope might be connected with a lever to open the trapdoor, he gave it a pull. Suddenly two stakes of the bedstead came down with a loud crash.

Ma Joong hastily crawled out from under the bed. As he crouched behind the door, he heard people running from the library, shouting at the top of their voices, “Catch the thief. Catch the thief!”

Four students ran across the courtyard to the backrooms but when they saw that the candle in the middle room and in the room on left had been put out, they did not dare to proceed further, fearing that the robbers were lying in ambush in these darkened rooms.

Young Hsu, although apparently more agitated than the others, seemed more angry than afraid. He rushed into the middle room and shook the old servant awake. Then he lighted the candle and quickly went into his own room.

In the mean time Ma Joong had utilised the general confusion for softly opening the door behind which he had been crouching. It opened on the court yard. He swung himself up on the low roof of the gallery and climbed on the roof of Mrs. Bee’s house. The people in the courtyard saw his shape outlined against the sky but nobody dared to follow him. Ma Joong slowly crawled over the ridge of Mrs. Bee’s house, so that everybody could see him. But as soon as he was covered by the high ridge, he crept back to the dividing wall on his belly, and from there onto the roof of young Hsu’s room. The people below thought that he had made his getaway via Mrs. Bee’s roof and no one suspected that he was lying on the roof right above them. He remained there, pressing his body flat on the tiles, listening to the conversation.