The Chinese Maze Murders (26 page)

“If I am not mistaken, Ma Joong, you reached the ninth and highest grade in boxing about ten years ago, did you not?”

The tall fellow squared his shoulders. He replied proudly:

“Indeed, Your Honour!”

“Now think back,” Judge Dee ordered, “and tell me how you felt towards your master when you were still a beginner, say of the second or third grade!”

Ma Joong was not accustomed to analyse his feelings. He knitted his brows and thought furiously. After a while he answered slowly:

“Well, Your Honour, I was deeply devoted to my master. He certainly was one of the finest boxers of our time and I admired him greatly. But when I boxed with him and he eluded my cleverest blows without the slightest effort, playfully hitting me anywhere he liked despite my frantic defence, I still admired him but at the same time I hated him because of his infinite superiority!”

Judge Dee smiled wanly.

“Thank you, my friend!” he said. “This afternoon I went to the mountains south of this city and there met a person who greatly disturbed me. Now you have put into words exactly what I did not dare to formulate so clearly for myself!”

Ma Joong had no idea what the judge was talking about but he felt flattered by the praise. With a broad smile he pulled aside the screen leading to the court hall. The judge passed through and ascended the dais.

Twentieth Chapter

A REBEL CHIEFTAIN CONFESSES UNDER TORTURE; A MYSTERIOUS STRANGER IS AT LAST IDENTIFIED

T
HREE
beats on the gong announced the opening of the afternoon session of the tribunal.

No one knew that anything but routine matters would be dealt with, so only a few dozen spectators had drifted into the court hall.

As soon as Judge Dee had seated himself behind the bench and opened the session, he gave a sign to Headman Fang. Four constables went to the entrance of the court hall and remained standing there on guard.

“Because of important reasons of state,” Judge Dee announced, “no one shall leave this court before the session is closed!”

A murmur of astonishment rose from the audience.

Judge Dee took up his vermilion brush and filled out a slip for the warden of the jail.

Two constables brought in the Uigur. He walked with difficulty, they had to support him by his arms.

In front of the dais he let himself down on one knee; the splinted leg he stretched out in front with a groan of pain.

“State your name and profession!” Judge Dee ordered.

The man lifted his head. Deep hatred shone from his burning eyes.

“I am Prince Ooljin, of the Blue Tribe of the Uigurs!” he snapped.

“Among you barbarians,” the judge said coldly, “a man
calls himself a prince as soon as he has twenty horses! But that is neither here nor there.

“The Imperial Government in its infinite grace has deigned to accept the Khan of the Uigurs as a vassal and he has duly sworn allegiance to His Majesty taking a solemn oath with Heaven and Earth as witness.

“You, Ooljin, have been scheming to attack this town. You have betrayed your own Khan and you are guilty of rebellion against the Imperial Government.

“Rebellion is a most serious crime, it is punished with the extreme penalty in a severe form. Your only hope for having this punishment somewhat mitigated lies in telling the complete truth; this means that you must also reveal who are the Chinese traitors who promised to collaborate with you in the execution of your nefarious scheme.”

“You call such a Chinese a traitor,” the Uigur shouted, “I call him a just man! Some Chinese recognize that what they have taken from us must be given back. Dit not you Chinese encroach on our pastures, your peasants ploughing our good grasslands and transforming them into rice fields? Have we not been driven away farther and farther to the desert where our horses and cattle die on our hands?

“I shall not reveal the names of those Chinese who realized the awful wrong that your people have done to us, the Uigur tribes!”

The headman was going to hit him but the judge raised his hand.

Leaning forward in his chair he said quietly:

“It so happens that I have no time for preliminaries. Your right leg is already broken, you cannot walk anyway. So it won’t inconvenience you much if your other leg should be broken too.”

Judge Dee gave a sign to the headman.

Two constables threw the Uigur on his back on the floor
and stood with their feet on his hands. Another brought a wooden trestle of about two feet high.

The headman lifted Ooljin’s left leg and bound the foot to the trestle. He looked up at the judge.

As Judge Dee nodded, a sturdy constable struck the knee with a heavy rounded stick.

The Uigur let out a hoarse scream.

“Take your time,” the judge ordered the constable,” don’t hit too fast!”

The constable struck a blow on the shin, then two on the thigh.

Ooljin screamed and cursed in his own language. When his shin was struck again he yelled:

“One day our hordes shall invade your accursed country, we shall raze your walls and burn your cities, we shall kill your men and make your women and children our slaves …”

His voice became a wild scream as the constable hit him another vicious blow. As he raised the stick again for the final blow that would break the leg, Judge Dee held up his hand.

“Yoo will realize, Ooljin,” he said casually, “that this interrogation is mere routine. I just want you to confirm what your Chinese confederate told me when he reported on you and your tribesmen and gave away the entire plot!”

With a superhuman effort the Uigur tore away one of his hands from under the feet of the constable. Raising himself on his elbow he shouted:

“Don’t try to catch me with brazen lies, you dog official!”

“Well,” Judge Dee observed coldly, “of course a Chinese is much too clever for you stupid barbarians. He made it appear as if he was on your side. And when the time came, he reported everything to the authorities. Soon the government shall appoint him to a lucrative post as a reward for
his valuable information. Don’t you see how you and your ignorant Khan were made fools of?”

As he began to speak the judge gave a sign to Ma Joong. Then Yoo Kee was led before the dais.

When he saw the Uigur lying on the floor Yoo Kee’s face turned ashen. He wanted to run away but Ma Joong grabbed his arm in a vice-like grip.

As soon as the Uigur saw Yoo Kee, he spat out a string of curses.

“You son of a dog!” he yelled, “You vile traitor! Cursed be the day on which an honest Uigur resolved to work for a double-dealing Chinese cur like you!”

“Your Honour, this man is crazy!” Yoo Kee shouted.

Judge Dee ignored him. He calmly addressed the Uigur:

“Who are your accomplices in this man’s mansion?”

Ooljin gave the names of the two Uigur warriors hired by Yoo Kee ostensibly as fencing masters. Then he shouted:

“And let me tell you that there are also Chinese traitors! That dogshead Yoo may have fooled me but I assure you that those other Chinese bastards were prepared to do everything just for the money!”

He then enumerated the names of three Chinese shopkeepers and four soldiers

Tao Gan carefully noted down their names.

Judge Dee beckoned Chiao Tai to his side. He said in a whisper:

“Go immediately to your quarters in Chien’s mansion and place those four soldiers under arrest. Then go with Corporal Ling and twenty men to Yoo Kee’s mansion and arrest the two Uigurs there. You will then apprehend the three Chinese shopkeepers. Finally you will arrest The Hunter and his confederates in the Northern Row!”

As Chiao Tai hurried away Judge Dee said to Ooljin:

“I am not an unjust man, Ooljin. I won’t stand for a
Chinese receiving a reward because he betrayed you after he had instigated and abetted your crime. If you want to prevent this man Yoo Kee from getting away with his treacherous deeds, you had better tell how Magistrate Pan was murdered!”

The Uigur’s eyes blazed with unholy glee.

“Here is my revenge!” he shouted. “Listen, you official! Four years ago that man Yoo Kee gave me ten silver pieces. He told me to go to the tribunal and tell the new magistrate that that very night he could catch Yoo Kee in a secret conference with an emissary of the Uigur Khan, near the ford. Magistrate Pan came along with one assistant. The latter I knocked down as soon as we were outside the city gate. I myself cut the magistrate’s throat and dragged his body to the river bank.”

Ooljin spat in the direction of Yoo Kee.

“Now what about your reward, you dog?” he yelled.

Judge Dee nodded to the senior scribe. He read aloud his notes of what the Uigur had said. Ooljin agreed that it was a true account of his confession. The document was handed to the Uigur and he impressed his thumbmark on it.

Then Judge Dee spoke:

“You, Ooljin, are an Uigur prince from over the border and your crime of sedition concerns the external relations of our Empire. I am in no position to find out if and how deeply your Khan and the chieftains of the other tribes are implicated in this scheme of rebellion. It is not within my competence to pass judgement on you. You shall be conveyed immediately to the capital. There your crime shall be dealt with by the Board for Barbarian Affairs.”

He gave a sign to the headman. Prince Ooljin was laid on a stretcher and carried back to the jail.

“Bring the criminal Yoo Kee before me!” Judge Dee ordered.

As Yoo Kee was pressed to his knees in front of the dais, Judge Dee said sternly:

“Yoo Kee, you are guilty of high treason. This is a crime against the state for which the law prescribes a terrible punishment. Yet perhaps the great name of your late father and a recommendation from me might bring the authorities to mitigate somewhat the fearful fate that awaits you. Therefore I advise you to confess now and give a full account of your crime!”

Yoo Kee did not reply. His head hung low and he breathed heavily. Judge Dee gave a sign to the headman to leave him alone.

At last Yoo Kee looked up. He said in a toneless voice, quite different from his accustomed animated way of talking:

“Beyond the two Uigurs, I have no accomplices in my mansion. I would have told my servants at the very last moment that we were going to take over the town. The four soldiers received a gift in money. Tomorrow, on the hour of midnight, they would light a signal fire on the highest watchtower in the Chien mansion. They were told that this would be the sign for a band of ruffians to create a disturbance and that that was the cover under which the two large goldsmiths’ shops of this city would be looted. In fact, however, the fire would be the sign for the Uigur tribes over the river to attack. Ooljin and his Chinese helpers would then have opened the Watergate, and …”

“Enough!” Judge Dee interrupted him. “Tomorrow you shall have full opportunity for telling the entire story.

“Now I only want you to answer one question. What did you do with the testament you found concealed in your late father’s scroll picture?”

A look of surprise flashed over Yoo Kee’s haggard face. He replied:

“Since the original testament stated that the property was to be divided equally between me and my half brother Yoo Shan, I destroyed it. Instead I inserted into the lining of the scroll a paper that I had written myself and that would establish beyond all doubt that I was the only rightful heir.”

“You see,” the judge said disdainfully, “that every one of your black deeds is known to me! Lead the criminal back to jail!”

Not long after the judge had closed the session, Chiao Tai came to his private office and reported that all the criminals had been duly placed under arrest. In the Northern Row there had been some trouble, The Hunter had resisted his arrest but he had been knocked down by Corporal Ling.

Judge Dee leaned back in his chair. Sipping a cup of hot tea he said: “Ooljin and the six Uigurs must be conveyed to the capital. Let Corporal Ling select ten soldiers, and set out on horseback tomorrow morning. If they change horses at the nearest military post, they should be in the capital within a week. The three shopkeepers and the soldiers who accepted the bribe, I shall judge here.”

Looking at his four lieutenants sitting in a half circle in front of his desk, Judge Dee continued with a smile:

“I think that with the arrest of the leaders we have nipped this plot in the bud!”

Chiao Tai nodded eagerly.

“The Uigur tribesmen,” he said, “are not to be despised as warriors in a pitched battle in the open field. They are fine horsemen and their archers shoot with deadly accuracy. But they have neither the experience nor the equipment necessary for laying siege to a walled city. When tomorrow night they don’t see the signal fire on the watch tower, they will not dare to attack!”

Judge Dee nodded.

“I leave it to you, Chiao Tai,” he said, “to make the necessary preparations to meet any eventuality.”

With a bleak smile the judge added:

“You cannot complain that you are not kept busy here, my friends!”

“The other day when we were approaching Lan-fang,” Sergeant Hoong said with a smile, “Your Honour observed that our task here would be interesting because we would meet here unusual problems! That surmise has indeed come true!”