'Yes,' Chiao Tai said slowly, 'that could be quite true. It would fit nicely with what his two slave-girls told me, namely that the captain is deeply devoted to some woman.'
'Two slave-girls?' the judge asked. 'So that is why the Prefect said yesterday that Nee is leading a dissolute life.'
'No, sir. Those two girls — they are twins, by the way — said definitely that the captain never as much as makes a pass at them.'
'What is he keeping them for, then? As interior decoration?' Tao Gan asked.
'Out of piety to their mother, who was a distant relative of his. Rather a pathetic story.' He related in detail what Captain Nee had said, and added, 'The Chinese scoundrel who seduced that young lady must have been a mean bastard. I hate those fellows who think they can do what they like with a foreign girl, just because she isn't Chinese.'
The judge gave him a keen look. He remained silent for a long while, pensively playing with his sidewhiskers. At last he spoke:
'Well, we have more important things to worry about than a sea captain's private life. You two may go now and have your noon rice. But be back here before two o'clock, for the conference.'
When the two friends had greeted the judge and were about to leave the hall, Chiao Tai picked up the small package from the table. Handing it to Tao Gan, he said in an undertone:
'This was slipped into my sleeve by a girl in the street. She bumped into me expressly, when I was leaving Nee's house. Since it's marked personal, I didn't like to show it to our judge before you'd seen it.'
Tao Gan quickly opened it. Inside was an egg-shaped object, wrapped up in what seemed like an old blank envelope. It was a cricket-cage of beautiful carved ivory.
Tao Gan put it to his ear and listened a moment to the soft chirruping. 'It's from her all right,' he muttered. Then he suddenly exclaimed, 'Look here! What does this mean?'
He pointed at the square seal on the flap of the envelope. It read: 'Private seal of Lew, Imperial Censor.'
'We must show this to the judge at once!’ he said excitedly.
They went back to the rear of the hall. When Judge Dee looked up astonished from the map he was studying, Tao Gan silently handed him the cage and the envelope. Chiao Tai told him quickly how he had got it. The judge put the cage aside, examined the seal, then slit the envelope open and took out a single sheet of thin notepaper. It was covered with small cursive writing. Smoothing the paper out on his desk, he scrutinized it carefully. At last he looked up and said gravely:
'These are a few notes the Censor jotted down for his own use. Concerning three Arabs who paid him sums of money, for goods received. He doesn't say clearly what goods. Besides Mansur, he mentions the names of two others, transcribed as Ah-me-te and Ah-si-se.'
'Holy heaven!' Chiao Tai exclaimed. 'Then the Censor was a traitor! Or is it a fake, perhaps?'
'It is perfectly genuine,' the judge said slowly. 'The seal is ah right; I have seen it hundreds of times in the Chancery. As to the writing, I am familiar with the Censor's regular hand from the confidential reports to the Council he wrote out himself, but not with the shorthand that is used for such notes. But this memo is written in the highly cursive style that only great scholars achieve.'
He leaned back in his chair, and remained deep in thought for a considerable time. His two lieutenants watched him anxiously. Suddenly he looked up.
'I'll tell you what this means!' he said briskly. 'Someone is perfectly aware of our real purpose in visiting Canton! And since that is a closely guarded secret of state, the unknown person must be a ranking official in the capital who is in on all the secret deliberations of the Grand Council. He must belong to a political faction opposing the Censor. He and his accomplices lured the Censor to Canton, in order to involve him in Mansur's plot, accuse him of high treason and thus have him removed from the political scene. But the Censor saw through the clumsy scheme, of course. He feigned to be willing to collaborate with the Arabs, as proved by this note. He did that only in order to find out who exactly was behind the plot. However, the other party obviously discovered that the Censor had seen through the scheme. And had him poisoned.' Looking levelly at Tao Gan, he went on, 'The fact that the blind girl sent you the envelope proves that she means well, but at the same time that she was present when the Censor died. For blind persons can't pick up letters lying about on a table or in the street. She must have found it when she went through the dead man's sleeves with her sensitive fingers, and abstracted the envelope without the murderer noticing it. She took the Golden Bell also from the Censor's dead body. The story she told you about how she heard the cricket's sound while passing by the temple was so much eyewash.'
'Later she must have asked someone she trusted to have a look at the envelope,' Tao Gan remarked. 'When she was told that it bore the Censor's seal, she kept it. Then when she heard from the person or persons who visited her after I had left her room that I was investigating the Censor's disappearance, she sent the envelope to me — adding the cricket, to indicate that it came from her.'
The judge had hardly listened. He burst out angrily: 'Our opponents know exactly every move we make! It is an impossible situation! And that sea captain must be hand in glove with them, Chiao Tai! It can't be just a coincidence that the unknown girl put the package in your sleeve in front of his house. Go back to Captain Nee at once, and question him closely! Begin discreetly, but if he denies knowing the blind girl, you collar him and bring him here! You'll find me in my private dining-room.'
XIV
Chiao Tai took the precaution of descending from the litter in the street next to the one where Captain Nee lived, and then went on afoot. Before knocking, he looked the street up and down. There were only a couple of street vendors about; most people were either eating their noon rice or preparing for their siesta.
The old crone opened the gate. She immediately started upon a long story in what Chiao Tai presumed to be Persian. He listened for a while to show his goodwill, then pushed her away and went inside.
On the second floor a deep silence reigned. He opened the door of the reception room. No one was there. He thought the captain and his two charming slave-girls would have finished their noon meal by now and would be taking their siesta. Severally — as Dunyazad would doubtless have pointed out! he said to himself peevishly. He would wait for a little while; perhaps the old crone would have enough sense to rouse the captain. If no one appeared, he would have to explore the rest of the house on his own.
He stepped up to the sword rack and again admired the blades displayed there. Absorbed in his study, he did not hear the two turbaned men who climbed on to the flat roof outside. They came noiselessly into the room, carefully stepping over the potted orchids on the window sill. While the lean one drew a long thin knife, the squat man took a firm hold of his club, stepped up behind Chiao Tai and quickly brought the club down hard on the back of his head. Chiao Tai stood stock-still for one brief moment, then he fell to the floor with a heavy thud.