'I'll sit here, if I may. The light of the candles is bothering me.'
'Certainly!’ Liang turned his own chair round so as to face the judge. Sitting down, he resumed: 'From here we have a better view of the ancestral portrait.'
The judge watched him as he poured the tea in two small cups of blue porcelain. He placed one in front of Judge Dee, then cupped the other in his hands. The judge noticed through the thin, long fingers a crack in the delicate glaze. Liang pensively looked at the picture.
'It is an excellent likeness,' he said, 'done by a great artist. Do you notice how carefully he painted every small detail?' Putting down his cup, he rose and walked over to the picture. Standing with his back to the judge, he pointed out the details of the broadsword lying across the Admiral's knees.
Judge Dee shifted their tea cups. He quickly emptied that of Liang in the bowl of chess-pieces nearest to him, then got up and stepped up to his host, the empty cup in his hand.
'I hope you still have that sword?' he asked. As Liang nodded, he went on, 'I too possess a famous sword, inherited from my ancestors. Its name is "Rain Dragon".'
'Rain Dragon? What a curious name!’
'I'll tell you its story, some other time. Could I have another cup of tea, Mr Liang?'
'By all means!’
After they had sat down again, Liang refilled Judge Dee's cup, then emptied his own. Folding his thin hands in his sleeves, he said with a smile:
'Let's now have the story of the stolen body!’
'Before I come to that,' Judge Dee said briskly, 'I would like to give you a brief sketch of the background, so to speak.' As Liang nodded eagerly, the judge took his fan from his sleeve, and leaned back in his chair. Slowly fanning himself, he began:
'When I arrived in Canton the day before yesterday to trace the missing Censor, I only knew that his business was in some way or another connected with the Arabs here. In the course of my inquiries I found that I had an opponent who knew perfectly well the real object of my visit, and who was watching every move we made. When I had discovered the Censor, murdered by a Tanka poison, I assumed that one of the Censor's enemies at court had engaged a local agent to lure the Censor to Canton, and have him killed here by Arab conspirators. But I perceived also other forces that seemed intent on thwarting the evil scheme. As my investigation went on, things became ever more complicated. Arab hooligans and Tanka stranglers were roaming about, and a mysterious blind girl kept flitting in and out of the picture. It was only this very morning that I at last obtained a definite clue. Namely when the dancer Zumurrud told Colonel Chiao that it was she who had poisoned the Censor, and that her patron knew all about it. She kept to the rule of the "world of flowers and willows" that a girl should never divulge the name of a customer. I suspected the Governor, the Prefect and thought in passing of you. It led me nowhere.'
He snapped his fan close and put it back into his sleeve. Liang had been listening with a bland air of polite interest. Judge Dee sat up straight and resumed:
'So I tried another approach, namely to piece together a mental picture of my opponent. Then I realized that he had the typical mind of a chess-player. A man who always stays in the background and makes others act for him, moving them about like chess-men on the board. I and my assistants were also his chessmen, we were an integral part of his game. This realization was an important step forward. For a crime is half-solved already when one has understood the criminal's mind.
'How very true!’
'I then reconsidered you, the expert chess-player,' the judge resumed. 'You certainly had the subtle intellect required for evolving a difficult scheme, and for supervising its execution. I also could imagine a good motive, namely your frustration at not being able to follow in the footsteps of your illustrious father. On the other hand, however, you were definitely not the type of person to fall in love with an Arab dancer tainted by pariah blood. I decided that if you should be our man, then one of your henchmen would be the dancer's lover. Since Mr Yau Tai-kai would eminently fit that role, I resolved to have him arrested. Just then, however, the theft of the dancer's body was reported to me. And that made me come straight to you.'
'Why to me?' Liang asked calmly.
'Because when I then began to think about the dead dancer and about the Tanka and their savage passions, I suddenly remembered the chance remark of a poor Chinese prostitute who had been a slave of the Tanka. At their drunken orgies the Tanka used to boast to her that about eighty years ago an important Chinese had secretly married one of their girls, and that their son had become a famous warrior. Then I thought of the peculiar features of the Subduer of the South Seas.' He pointed at the picture on the wall. 'Look at the high cheekbones, flat nose and low forehead. "Old Monkey-face", as his sailors affectionately nicknamed the Admiral.' Liang nodded slowly.
'So you have unearthed our jealously guarded family secret! Yes, my grandmother was indeed a Tanka. My grandfather committed a crime in marrying her!’ He grinned. There was a malignant glint in his eyes when he resumed, 'Imagine, the famous Admiral tainted by the blood of an outcast! He was not as fine a gentleman as people always thought him to be, eh?'
Ignoring the sneering remark, Judge Dee continued:
'Then I realized that I had been thinking of the wrong game of chess. Namely of our Chinese literary chess played with pieces all of equal value; or the military one, representing a battle between two opposing generals. I suddenly understood that I ought to have referred to the game as people say it is played in India. There the king and the queen are the two most important pieces. And in the particular game of chess you were playing it was not primarily a high position in the capital that was the gage, but the possession of the queen.'
'How cleverly put!’ Liang said with a thin smile. 'May I ask in what stage the game is now?'
"The last. The king is lost, for the queen is dead.'
'Yes, she is dead,' Liang said quietly. 'But she is lying in state, as befits a queen. The queen of the game of life. Her spirit now presides over these solemn death rites, rejoices in rich offerings, in fresh flowers. Look, she smiles her beautiful smile....'He rose and quickly pulled the curtain above the altar aside.
Judge Dee gasped at this shocking, unspeakable outrage. Here in the sacred ancestral hall of the Liang family, facing the dead Admiral's portrait, and in the niche destined for the soul-tablets of the departed, Zumurrud's naked body lay stretched out on the gold-lacquered altar top. She was lying on her back, her hands folded behind her head, her full lips curved in a mocking smile.
'She has only received preliminary treatment,' Liang remarked casually, as he drew the curtain shut again. 'Tonight the work will be continued. Has to be, in this hot weather.'
He resumed his seat. The judge had now mastered himself. He asked coldly:
'Shall we reconstruct the game together, move by move?'
'I'd like that very much,' Liang replied gravely. 'An analysis of the game always affords me the keenest pleasure.'