Poisoned Bride and Other Judge Dee Mysteries (5 page)

After the customary exchange of amenities, Judge Dee descended from his palanquin, and said:

“I shall first go to Koong’s hostel for a personal investigation, and then open the tribunal and proceed with the inquest”.

He ordered them to lead him to Koong’s hostel, where he found the dead bodies of the two men, showing several wounds apparently inflicted with a knife, lying on the ground in front of the door. Judge Dee asked Warden Pang: “Where were these two corpses originally found?” Warden Pang answered hurriedly:

“By Your Honour’s leave, these men were killed by Koong Wan-deh for gain; thereafter he removed the bodies to the market gate, so as to be able to repudiate his crime later. Since I would not have innocent people become involved in this affair, I had the bodies moved to this place in front of Koong’s hostel. I beg Your Honour to verify this”.He had hardly finished speaking, when Judge Dee roared at him:

“You dogs-head, I am not asking to be advised by you as to the identity of the criminal. What I demand to know is, how can you, charged with an official function, and supposed to know the rules and regulations, thus offend against the law? You ought to know what the punishment is for wilfully moving dead bodies, and thus tampering with important evidence. Quite apart from the question whether or not Koong is guilty of murder, you had no right to remove the two bodies from the place where they were originally found, before having duly reported to me, explaining your reasons, or before I held the inquest and drew up and sealed the official report. Why, I ask you, did you thus dare to offend against the laws of the land, and were you so bold as to tamper with the bodies without authorisation? Evidently you yourself are trying to cover up some nefarious scheme. Probably you planned this crime together with Koong, and having quarreled with him over the division of the loot, now try to shift all the blame on to him. Now I shall first have you beaten with the heavy bamboo, and then I shall question you under torture.”

Judge Dee ordered the constables to let Warden Pang have hundred strokes with the heavy bamboo, then and there. Warden Pang’s wails rose to heaven, and soon blood began to trickle from his bursting skin. By now all the onlookers were convinced that Koong had been wrongly accused, and they admired Judge Dee for his shrewdness.

After Pang had received the full hundred strokes, he still persisted that he was innocent. Judge Dee decided for the time being not to press him further, but entered Koong’s hostel with his retinue. First he asked Koong:

“Your hostel has a great number of rooms. Give me a clear account of where the two murdered men stayed”.

“The three rooms at the back of the house are the living quarters of myself and my wife, and our small daughter. The two rooms on the east side are used as kitchen. Thus these five rooms are never used by the guests: for them I have reserved the rooms in the first and the second courtyard. Since the two guests that arrived yesterday night were silk merchants, I knew that they would not grudge expense, and so offered them the best room of the second courtyard, this being more comfortable than the first, by reason of its being further removed from the noise and dust of the street”.

Koong then led Judge Dee and his assistants to the second courtyard, and showed him there the room that had been occupied by the two murdered merchants.

Judge Dee and his lieutenants carefully scrutinised this room. They saw that the remainder of yesterday’s dinner was still on the table, and that in front of the couch two night utensils were still standing about. There was not the slightest evidence of a struggle, let alone of a murder having been committed there. Judge Dee, thinking that Koong might still be holding back something, asked him:

“Since you have been keeping this hostel for more than ten years, surely there is much coming and going of guests. I presume that yesterday you had also other guests staying here, next to the two silk merchants?”

“Aside from them there were three others. One was a leather merchant on his way to Shansi, and the two others were a gentleman with his man servant, from Honan Province. Since the gentleman became ill, he and his servant are even now resting in their room in the first courtyard.”

Judge Dee had the leather merchant and the man-servant of the sick traveller brought before him. He first questioned the leather merchant.

“I am a leather merchant from Shansi”, the man said, “and I have been engaged in this trade for a number of years. When passing through here I always stay in this hostel. I actually saw the two silk merchants leave here just before daybreak, and I can also attest that during the night I heard no cries, nor any commotion. Of course, I am completely ignorant as to how and where the two men met their death”.

Judge Dee then turned to the man-servant. This man confirmed what the leather merchant had said, adding that, owing to his master’s illness, he had hardly slept during the night, if anything out of the ordinary had happened in the hostel, he would certainly have noticed it.

On hearing this evidence, Judge Dee thought that it tended to confirm his doubts of Koong Wan-deh’s guilt. To be doubly sure, however, he ordered his men to go over every single room of the hostel inch by inch. This they did, but they failed to discover any trace of a crime having been committed there.

Judge Dee was now convinced that the murder had been committed somewhere outside, after the merchants had left the hostel. For even if one assumed that all three witnesses were in the plot together with Koong, how could they have obliterated all the traces of the crime?

Deep in thought he took his retinue back to the market place, and closely scrutinised the spot where the two bodies had been discovered. There, ample evidence sprang to the eye that the murder had been committed right on the spot: the ground showed that much blood had been shed.

There were no houses in the immediate vicinity, but some stood a little farther away, on the market place itself. Judge Dee had the people living there brought before him, and questioned them. But this produced no results. The first thing they knew about were the shouts of some early passers-by that woke them calling out that a murder had been committed. Thereupon they had immediately reported to the warden, and during his investigation it had become known that the victims had been staying at Koong’s hostel.

This information made Judge Dee incline to believe that Warden Pang might after all turn out to be the culprit. But since night was falling, it was too late to start holding the inquest. He decided to send his assistants out to do some private sleuthing that same night, and see what information they could gather. The inquest could be held early the next morning. He said to the village headman:

“When I started investigating this case, one problem arose after the other, and each made the case more complicated. Therefore I came here today directly after the case had been reported, for the purpose of making a personal investigation. In a case like this it is of the utmost importance that an inquest is held as soon as possible; thus I shall stay right here over night, so that we can open the inquest tomorrow morning”.

He ordered a close watch to be kept over the two bodies, and went to the official quarters set up for him. After having chatted there for some time with the village head, he finally allowed everybody to retire. But he retained Sergeant Hoong, and, after all the others had gone, he said to him:

“This crime certainly was not committed by Koong. I rather suspect Warden Pang. He immediately accused some one, in order to prevent us from suspecting him. You had better go out tonight, and try to gather some information. As soon as you have found something worth while let me know immediately”.

Sergeant Hoong took his leave, and first went to see Warden Pang’s assistant Djao San, taking three constables on duty with him.

Djao San was with the people standing guard over the two bodies. Sergeant Hoong walked up to him, and addressed him in a conversational tone.

“I have come together with His Excellency Judge Dee to take part in the conduct of this case. Until now I have not bothered your superior. The only conclusion I have come to is that old man Koong must be innocent. And although I and my companions here are government servants, we never bother innocent people. All in all we had, however, rather a trying day, and we have a rather empty feeling inside. Would it be too much to assume that your boss, Warden Pang, has a bit of food and a jar of wine lying around somewhere? It is not that we are out to get a gratis meal, everybody knows how honest our master is. To-morrow he shall certainly give me and my colleagues some money for our trouble, and out of that we shall pay you for the meal. So, in the meantime, don’t let us go hungry!”

Djao San hurriedly paid his respects to the sergeant, and said: “Please don’t be angry, Sergeant. Our warden is so occupied with this case right now, that he completely forgot to give the necessary instructions for the entertaining of His Excellency’s staff. But since you and your colleagues are hungry, allow me the honour of being your host. Let us go and have a snack and a drink in the market inn”.

He then ordered a few men to take over the guard of the bodies, and took the sergeant and the constables to the inn. The servants there, seeing that this party consisted of official persons engaged in the investigation of the murder, stormed them with questions about this and that, and immediately brought a profusion of delicacies and plenty wine. Sergeant Hoong told them: “We are not like ordinary constables, who, as soon as they go somewhere to work on a case, immediately start gorging themselves with wine and food at their master’s expense, and on top of that demand a few pieces of silver from the inn to cover their traveling expenses. You bring only two dishes of plain food, and give each of us two cups of wine, that is all. We shall settle the bill later.”

After Sergeant Hoong had made this nice gesture, they all sat down. Now Sergeant Hoong, of course, knew perfectly well that Warden Pang, after having received his punishment, was being detained in Koong’s hostel, guarded by Chiao Tai and Ma Joong; but the rules of propriety had prevented his mentioning this painful fact right at the start of his conversation with Pang’s subordinate Djao San. Now, however, he thus spoke to him:

“Your boss is, frankly speaking, too careless about his duties. Why, yesterday he was out all night. Coming home early in the morning, upon learning about the murder, he suddenly remembered that old Koong was a wealthy man, who could afford some squeeze, and then hit on this wicked plan to remove the corpses to Koong’s hostel. Is that not overdoing it a bit? And where, now we come to it, did your boss go last night? The place where the bodies were found is on the open road. How is it that neither he nor you, who are supposed to make the nightrounds together, noticed them during your last watch? Today His Excellency the Judge let Pang have a hundred strokes with the heavy bamboo, and tomorrow he will certainly press the warden again to produce the criminal. Now say for yourself, is this not wilfully getting oneself into trouble?”

“Sergeant”, answered Djao San, “you don’t know the inside of this affair. Since all of us are gathered now together around this table as old friends, there is no harm in telling you. You must know that our warden has an old grudge against Koong. Every New Year this man Koong presents our warden with only a niggardly few coppers, and every time the warden thinks he can squeeze a nice gratuity out of Koong, that old skinflint persistently refuses.

“Now last night Warden Pang happened to be engaged in a small gambling party at Lee’s place and lost heavily. He went on gambling till dawn, until he heard people shouting that a murder had been committed. As soon as he heard that the victims had come from Koong’s hostel, he immediately thought that this was a splendid opportunity to get even with old Koong, and squeeze some badly needed funds out of him. So you see that Warden Pang has nothing to do with the murder itself. He only tried to cheat old Koong, and got a sound thrashing as his reward! Rather than harming others, he has harmed himself!

“Now as to this murder, this surely is a most baffling affair. It is perfectly clear that the deed was done at daybreak. It must have occurred after I had returned from that place after I had made the last round of the night, and then everything was still quiet. It is true that old man Koong is a skinflint, but as far as I can see, he certainly is not the murderer”.

Sergeant Hoong, on hearing this story, mumbled some noncommittal remarks, thinking by himself that thus neither was Warden Pang the criminal. He had only tried to swindle old Koong out of some pieces of silver, and had already received his just punishment in the form of the hundred strokes with the bamboo. So we are still faced with our original problem: who did commit the crime? Having thus ruminated, Sergeant Hoong set upon the meal with gusto, and made short work of it.

Having eaten the last morsel, and drunk the last drop of wine, the sergeant had the bill drawn up, and, to keep up appearances, told the innkeeper to come to the tribunal the next day to receive payment. Then he left his friends, and went along to call on Judge Dee.

After he had reported what he had just heard, Judge Dee said:

“This is indeed a difficult case. If Koong did not commit the murder, then the two victims must have let it become known somewhere else that their pockets were well-lined; some criminal must have heard this, and followed them all the way here, till this morning, when they had left the hostel, he saw his chance to kill them. This is the only explanation for the two bodies found near the market gate. Now I, as district magistrate am considered as the father and mother of the people here. I cannot but see to it that this murder is avenged. Only then can I face our Sovereign on high, and the common people below. However, there is nothing more that we can do to-day. Let us see to-morrow morning, after the inquest”. He then allowed Sergeant Hoong to retire.