The Chinese Maze Murders (34 page)

The judge reflected that this was the first time that he was in charge of defending the Empire’s boundary against a foreign attack. Looking up at the Imperial standard fluttering in the evening breeze he felt a deep pride glow in his breast. He folded his sword in his arms and looked out over the dark plain.

When the hour of midnight approached Judge Dee pointed to the distant horizon. Far away they saw flashes of light. The Uigurs were preparing to advance.

The lights gradually came nearer, then remained stationary. The barbarian horsemen had halted, waiting for the signal fire on the watchtower.

The three men stood there silently for over an hour.

Then suddenly lights flared up over the river. They became smaller and smaller, then disappeared altogether in the darkness.

Having waited in vain for the signal fire, the Uigurs had ridden back to their homesteads.

Twenty fifth Chapter

TWO DEPRAVED CRIMINALS SUFFER THE EXTREME PENALTY; JUDGE DEE LEARNS THE SECRET OF AN ABSTRUSE COUPLET

T
HE
next day Judge Dee heard Mrs. Lee during the morning session of the tribunal.

She readily confessed her crimes.

Once, shortly before the Governor’s death, Mrs. Lee had been drinking tea with Mrs. Yoo in the garden pavilion, waiting for the Governor. Mrs. Lee had been looking over some of his pictures and found a preliminary sketch of the landscape painting. She had seen from a few notes that the Governor had written in that this picture was a guide map to a short cut through the maze.

Mrs. Lee had felt greatly attracted to Mrs. Yoo, but as long as the Governor was alive she had not dared to reveal her feelings to her. After the Governor’s burial Mrs. Lee had visited the country mansion but only found the old couple there; they did not know where Mrs. Yoo had gone after Yoo Kee had expelled her. Mrs. Lee made inquiries in the countryside, but Mrs. Yoo had instructed the peasants to tell no one on what farm she was hiding with her son.

Then, some weeks before, Mrs. Lee had revisited the old country mansion when she happened to be in that neighbourhood. When she found the dead bodies of the old couple she had explored the first two stages of the short cut. She found that the clues in the landscape picture of which she had kept careful notes were correct.

Mrs. Lee had met White Orchid in the market and persuaded the girl to accompany her to her house. Once there, she soon completely cowed the shy girl and kept her captive as a victim of her whims. She made White Orchid do all the housework, beating her with her cane at the slightest provocation.

When Mrs. Lee discovered that White Orchid had slipped out to the deserted temple and there met a strange man, she had been furious. She had dragged the frightened girl to an empty storeroom where the thick walls deafened all sound. Mrs. Lee had made the girl strip and lashed her arms to a pillar.

Then Mrs. Lee had started to interrogate her, repeating again and again the same question: had White Orchid betrayed her whereabouts to the stranger? Everytime the girl denied this. Mrs. Lee had cruelly beaten her with a thin rattan stick, hissing horrible threats at her all the time. Writhing under the vicious lashes, White Orchid had frantically cried for mercy. This further enraged Mrs. Lee. She had let the rattan descend with all her force on the bare hips of the screaming girl until her arm grew tired. By then White Orchid was nearly distracted by pain and fear, but she still persisted that she was innocent.

But Mrs. Lee feared that her secret had leaked out. The next morning she disguised White Orchid as a nun and took her to the Governor’s country estate. There she locked the girl up in the room the old couple had been living in, taking away all her clothes to obviate every attempt at escaping. Mrs. Lee visited her every other day, bringing her a jug of water and a basket of dried beans and oil cakes. She had planned to bring the girl back from there as soon as White Orchid’s escapade to the temple had proved harmless.

Then, however, the constables came to search for the girl in the eastern quarter. Mrs. Lee became alarmed. Very
early the next morning she hastened to the country mansion. She had found her way to the hidden pavilion by the landmarks of the pine trees, compelling White Orchid to lead the way, mercilessly driving the girl on with her cane. In the pavilion she had made the girl lie down on the marble bench and then thrust her knife in her breast. A perverse instinct had moved her to cut off the head, the body she had pushed over the edge of the bench. Mrs. Lee had taken the severed head back with her in a basket. In her hurry Mrs. Lee had paid no attention to the box on the table.

Mrs. Lee related all this without any pressure. Judge Dee noticed that she took pleasure in telling everything and that she gloated over her cruel deeds. She also volunteered the information that thirty years ago she had murdered her husband by mixing poison in his wine.

Judge Dee felt a deep revulsion for this depraved woman. He was relieved when Mrs. Lee had affixed her thumbmark to her confession and could be led back to the jail.

At that same session Judge Dee heard the three Chinese shopkeepers who had been the Uigur’s accomplices. They proved to have no clear idea about the real portent of the plot. They had thought it was a plan to create a brawl and loot a few shops under cover of the confusion.

The judge had them given fifty blows with the bamboo and sentenced them to wear the heavy wooden pillory for one month.

That afternoon the steward of the Ding mansion came rushing to the tribunal. He reported that Candidate Ding had hanged himself and that the fourth wife of the late General had swallowed poison. Neither had left an explanatory note. The general opinion was that they had become despondent over the General’s tragic death. The woman’s suicide was favourably commented upon by some
old-fashioned people who thought it a proof of supreme devotion if a wife followed her deceased husband into the grave. They opened a subscription for the erection of a commemorative stone tablet.

During the following ten days Judge Dee devoted all his time to the liquidation of the affairs of Chien Mow and Yoo Kee. Some minor punishments were meted out to the two counsellors of Chien Mow, and those of his henchmen who had practised extortion. Mrs. Yoo had been informed of the contents of the Governor’s last will. She would be summoned to the tribunal as soon as the final verdict of the central authorities had come in from the capital.

Sergeant Hoong had hoped that the judge would relax somewhat now that he had solved all three criminal cases and broken up the plot against the town. But to his disappointment he found that Judge Dee was still greatly worried about something. The judge was often in a bad temper, and occasionally revised a previous decision, which was a most uncommon thing for him to do. The sergeant could not imagine what was the cause of the Judge’s worries, and Judge Dee vouchsafed no explanation.

One morning the clatter of horsehoofs and loud gongs resounded through the main street. Two hundred soldiers of the regular army entered Lan-fang with waving banners. This was the garrison force sent in response to Judge Dee’s request.

Their commander was an officer who had seen active service against the barbarians of the north, an intelligent young man who impressed the judge very favourably. He presented an official letter from the Board of Military Affairs which gave Judge Dee full authority also over all military affairs of the district.

The garrison was quartered in the Chien mansion and Chiao Tai returned to the tribunal.

The arrival of the garrison somewhat heartened the judge. Soon, however, he relapsed into his morose mood. He buried himself in the routine affairs of the district and went out very little. The only time he left the tribunal was when he attended the burial rites for White Orchid.

Woo had arranged a magnificent funeral, he had insisted on defraying all the expenses himself. The painter had become a changed man. He had foresworn drinking, a decision which involved him in a bitter quarrel with his landlord, the owner of the Eternal Spring wineshop. The latter took this decision as a reflection on the quality of his stock. All winebibbers of that quarter sadly called this breach the end of a beautiful friendship.

Woo sold all his paintings and rented a small room in the compound of the Temple of Confucius. He spent most of his time studying the Classics, going out only to visit Headman Fang in the nearby tribunal. They seemed to have become staunch friends, Woo would talk with him for hours in the guards’ quarters.

One afternoon when Judge Dee was sitting in his private office listlessly scanning some routine documents, Sergeant Hoong came in and handed him a large sealed envelope.

“This letter, Your Honour,” he said, “was brought just now by a courier from the capital!”

Judge Dee’s face lit up. He broke the seals and eagerly glanced through the papers inside.

As he folded the documents up again he nodded contentedly. Tapping the papers with his forefinger he said to the sergeant:

“This is the official verdict on Yoo Kee’s treason, the killing of General Ding, and Mrs. Lee’s murder. It will interest you that the conspiracy of the Uigur tribes has been settled on high government level, in negotiations between our Board for Barbarian Affairs and the Khan of the Uigurs;
Lan-fang is safe from further attacks! Tomorrow I shall close these cases. After that I shall be a free man!”

Sergeant Hoong did not quite understand Judge Dee’s last remark. But the judge gave him no time for asking questions. He started immediately to issue orders for the morning session of the tribunal.

The next morning the personnel of the tribunal started preparations two hours before daybreak. Torches were lighted in front of the main gate, where a group of constables was making ready the cart for conveying the condemned to the execution ground outside the southern city gate.

Despite the early hour, a large number of citizens were assembled there. They looked with morbid fascination at these preparations. Then mounted lance knights came from the garrison headquarters and formed a cordon round the cart.

One hour before dawn a sturdy constable hit the large bronze gong at the gate three formidable blows. The guards opened the double doors, and the crowd filed into the courtroom, lighted by large candles.

The crowd looked on in respectful silence as Judge Dee appeared on the dais and slowly seated himself behind the bench. He was clad in full ceremonial dress of shimmering green brocade. A scarlet pelerin hung over his shoulders. This was the sign that he would pronounce capital punishments.

First Yoo Kee was led before the dais.

As he knelt on the flagstones in front of the bench, the senior scribe placed a document in front of the judge. Judge Dee drew the candle nearer and read slowly in a solemn voice:

“The criminal Yoo Kee is guilty of high treason. He should properly be submitted to the lingering death, being cut to pieces alive. In view of the fact that the criminal’s
father, His Excellency Yoo Shou-chien, has merited greatly of the State and the people, and in view of the fact that he has entered a posthumous plea for mercy for his son, this sentence is mitigated in so far that the said criminal shall first be killed and thereafter dismembered. In deference again to the memory of the late Governor Yoo, the criminal’s head shall not be exposed on the city gate and his property shall not be confiscated.”

Judge Dee paused and handed a paper to the headman.

“The criminal is allowed to read his late father’s plea,” he announced.

Headman Fang gave the paper to Yoo Kee who had been listening with an impassive face. When he had read this pathetic document, however, Yoo Kee burst out into heartbreaking sobs.

Two constables bound Yoo Kee’s hands behind his back. Headman Fang took a long white board that had been prepared in advance and stuck it between the ropes on Yoo Kee’s back. There his personal name Kee, his crime and his punishment were written out in large characters. The family name Yoo was omitted, in deference to the old Governor.

When Yoo Kee had been led away Judge Dee spoke:

“The Imperial Government announce that the Khan of the Uigurs has sent a special delegation to the capital headed by his eldest son, to offer apologies for the outrageous scheme evolved by Prince Ooljin, and begging to be allowed to renew his pledge of allegiance to the Throne. The Imperial Government have graciously accepted the apologies, and have handed over the said Ooljin and his four accomplices to the delegation, leaving it to the Khan to take appropriate action.”

Ma Joong whispered to Chiao Tai:

“Translated into ordinary language ‘appropriate action’
means that the Khan will flay Ooljin alive, boil him in oil and cut what is left into small pieces! The Khan does not take kindly to people who bungle his schemes!”

“The Khan’s son,” the judge continued, “has been invited to prolong his stay in the capital as an honoured guest-of the Imperial Government.”

The spectators started cheering. They knew that with his eldest son kept as hostage in the capital, the Khan would abide by his promises.