Sitting in the comfortable bamboo armchair, I leisurely fanned myself with my fan of crane feathers, contemplating the garden bathed in the cool rays of the silvery moon. Suddenly I saw the small back gate open. Who shall describe my delighted surprise when my elder brother came walking in!
A meeting in a garden pavilion
I jumped up and rushed down the garden path to meet him.
"What brings you here?" I exclaimed, "why didn't you let me know you were coming south?"
"Quite unexpectedly," my brother said, "I had to depart. My first thought was to come and see you; I hope you'll excuse the late hour!"
I affectionately took him by his arm and led him to the pavilion. I noticed that his sleeve was damp and cold.
When I had made him sit down in my armchair, I took the chair opposite and looked at him solicitously. He had lost much weight, his face was gray and his eyes seemed to bulge slightly.
"It may be the effect of the moonlight," I said worriedly, "but I think you look ill. I suppose the journey down from Pei-chow was very tiring?"
"It proved difficult indeed," my brother said quietly, "I had hoped to be here four days earlier, but there was so much mist." He brushed a patch of dried mud from his simple white robe, then went on, "I have not been feeling too well of late, you know, I suffer from a searing pain here." He delicately touched the top of his head. "It goes deep down behind my eyes. I am also subject to fits of shivering."
"The hot climate here in our native place will do you good!" I said consolingly, "and tomorrow we'll let our old physician have a look at you. Now tell me all the news from Pei-chow!"
He gave me a concise account of his work there; it seemed he got along quite well with his chief, the Prefect. But when he came to his private affairs he looked worried. His First Lady had been acting rather strangely recently, he said. Her attitude to him had changed, he did not know why. He gave me to understand that there was some connection between this and his sudden departure. He started to shiver violently, and I did not press him further for details about a problem which evidently caused him much distress.
To divert his thoughts I brought up the subject of Judge Dee, telling him about the letter I had just written.
"Oh yes," my brother said, "in Pei-chow they tell a weird old tale about three dark mysteries that Judge Dee solved when he was serving there as magistrate. Having been handed down for generations, and being told and retold in the tea houses, this story has of course been much embellished by fancy."
"It is only just past midnight," I said excitedly. "If it doesn't tire you too much, I wish you would tell me the tale!"
My brother's haggard face twitched in pain. But when I hurriedly started to apologize for my unreasonable request, he stopped me with his raised hand.
"It may be of advantage to you to hear that strange story," he said gravely. "If I myself had given it more attention earlier, maybe things would have turned out differently. ..."
His voice trailed off, again he lightly touched the crown of his head. Then he resumed:
"Well, you know of course that in Judge Dee's day, after our victorious campaign against the Tartars, the northern frontier of our Empire had been moved for the first time farther out in the plains north of Pei-chow. At present Pei-chow is a prosperous, densely populated prefecture, the busy trade center of the northern provinces. But at that time it was still a rather isolated district; among the sparse population there were many families of mixed Tartar blood, who still practiced in secret the weird rites of the barbarian sorcerers. Farther north the great Northern Army of Generalissimo Wen Lo was stationed, to protect the Tang Empire against new invasions by the Tartar hordes."
After these preliminaries my brother started upon an uncanny narrative. The fourth night watch had sounded when he finally rose and said he had to go.
I wanted to accompany him home, for he was shivering badly now and his hoarse voice had become so weak that I could hardly hear what he said. But he resolutely refused, and we parted at my garden gate.
I felt in no mood for sleep, and returned to my library. There I hastily started to write the weird tale my brother had told me. When the red glow of dawn was in the sky I put down my writing brush and lay down on the bamboo couch out on the veranda.
When I woke up the time for the noon meal was approaching. I had my boyservant bring my rice out to the veranda, and ate with gusto, for once anticipating with pleasure the announced visit of my First Lady. I would triumphantly cut short her harangue about my not joining her during the night by adducing the unassailable excuse of my elder brother's unexpected arrival. When I had thus dealt with that aggravating woman, I would walk over to my brother's house for a leisurely chat. Perhaps he would tell me then exactly why he had left Pei-chow, and I would be able to ask him some elucidation about a few points which had not been very clear in the old story he told me.
But just when I was laying down my chopsticks, my steward came and announced that a special messenger had arrived from Pei-chow. He handed me a letter from the Prefect, who regretfully informed me that four days before, at midnight, my elder brother had suddenly died there.
Judge Dee sat huddled up in a thick fur coat in his armchair behind the desk in his private office. He wore an old fur bonnet with ear flaps, but still he felt the icy draft that blew through the spacious room.
Looking at his two elderly assistants sitting on stools in front of the desk, he said:
"That wind blows in through the smallest crevices!"
"It comes straight from the desert plain up north, Your Honor," the old man with the frayed beard remarked. "I'll call the clerk to add more coal to the brazier!"
As he rose and shuffled to the door, the judge said with a frown to the other:
"This northern winter does not seem to bother you, Tao Gan."
The gaunt man thus addressed put his hands deeper into the sleeves of the patched goatskin caftan he was wearing. He said with a wry smile:
"I have dragged this old body of mine all over the Empire, Your Honor, hot or cold, dry or wet—it's all the same to me! And I have this fine Tartar caftan that is much better than those expensive furs!"
The judge thought that he had rarely seen a more wretched-looking garment. But he knew that this wily old lieutenant of his was inclined to be parsimonious. Tao Gan had been originally an itinerant swindler. Nine years before, when Judge Dee was serving as magistrate in Han-yuan, he had extracted Tao Gan from a nasty situation. Then the trickster had reformed and asked to be admitted to Judge Dee's service. Since then his wide knowledge of the ways of the underworld, and his shrewd understanding of his fellow men had proved most useful in the tracking down of astute criminals.
Sergeant Hoong came back with a clerk carrying a pail with glowing coals. He piled them on the fire in the large copper brazier next to the desk. Having resumed his seat he said, rubbing his thin hands:
"The trouble with this office, Your Honor, is that it is too large! We have never had an office that measures thirty feet square!"
The judge looked at the heavy wooden pillars supporting the high ceiling blackened by age, and the broad windows opposite pasted over with thick oil paper that faintly reflected the whiteness of the snow in the courtyard outside.
"Don't forget, Sergeant," he said, "that till three years ago this tribunal was the headquarters of the Generalissimo of our Northern Army. The military always seem to need much elbow space!"