"We went back there together," Yeh Pin continued, "the house is only two streets from ours. Again we knocked and shouted but no one appeared. Now I know that place like the palm of my hand, and we quickly walked around the compound. We climbed over the wall, and went to the back of the house. The two barred windows of the bedroom were open. I stood on my brother's shoulders, and looked inside. I saw . . ."
Emotion strangled Yeh Pin's voice. Despite the cold, sweat was streaming from his brow. He mastered himself and went on:
"I saw on the oven-bed* (* In North China people use large ovens built of bricks heated by a slow fire that is kept burning inside. During the day this oven is used as a bench, during the night as a bed.) against the wall the naked body of my sister, covered with blood, Your Honor! I let out a cry, let go of the iron bars, and fell on the ground. My brother helped me up, and we rushed to the warden's office . . ."
Judge Dee hit his gavel on the bench.
"Let the plaintiff calm himself, and tell a coherent story!" he said sourly. "Having seen through the window the body of your sister covered with blood, how do you know that she is dead?"
Yeh did not reply, wild sobs racked his frame. Suddenly he raised his head.
"Your Honor," he stammered, "there was no head!"
Deep silence reigned in the packed hall.
Judge Dee leaned back in his chair. Slowly caressing his side whiskers he said:
"Proceed, please. You were saying that you went to see the warden."
"We met him on the corner of the street," Yeh Pin continued in a calmer voice. "I told him what we had seen and that we feared that Pan Feng might have been murdered, too. We asked for permission to break the door open. Who shall describe our anger when Warden Kao said that yesterday he had seen Pan Feng at noon, running along the street carrying a leather sack. He said he was leaving town for a few days.
"That fiend killed our sister and fled, Your Honor! I implore Your Honor to arrest that foul murderer so that the death of our poor sister will be avenged!"
"Where is that Warden Kao?" Judge Dee asked.
"I begged him to accompany us here to the tribunal, Your Honor," Yeh wailed, "but he refused, saying that he had to guard the house and see that nobody interfered with things there."
The judge nodded. He whispered to Sergeant Hoong: "At last a warden who knows his job!" To Yeh Pin he said:
"The scribe shall now read out your plaint, and if you find the record correct, you and your brother shall affix your thumb mark to it."
The senior scribe read out his notes, and the Yeh brothers agreed it was correct. When they had impressed their thumb marks on the document, Judge Dee spoke:
"I shall proceed immediately with my staff to the scene of the crime, and you and your brother shall go there, too. Before leaving here, however, you shall give a full description of Pan Feng to the scribe to be circulated among the civil and military authorities. Pan Feng has a start of only one night, and the roads are bad, I don't doubt that he'll be arrested soon. Rest assured that this tribunal shall bring the murderer of your sister to justice."
The judge let his gavel descend on the bench and declared the session closed.
Back in his private office Judge Dee went to stand by the brazier. Warming his hands over the fire he said to Sergeant Hoong and Tao Gan:
"We'll wait here till Yeh Pin has produced his description of Pan Feng."
"That severed head," Sergeant Hoong remarked, "is very strange!"
"Perhaps Yeh was deceived by the semiobscurity in the room," Tao Gan said. "A corner of the quilt or so might have covered the woman's head."
"Presently we'll see for ourselves what happened," the judge said.
The clerk came in with Pan Feng's full description, and Judge Dee quickly wrote out the text for the placards, and drafted a note to the commander of the nearest military-police post. He ordered the clerk: "See to it that this matter is attended to at once!"
Judge Dee's large palanquin was standing ready in the courtyard outside. The judge ascended and invited Sergeant Hoong and Tao Gan to join him inside. The eight bearers, four in front and four behind, lifted the poles on their shoulders and set off in a rhythmic gait. Two constables on horseback preceded them, and the headman followed behind with four other men.
As they entered the main street that crosses the city from north to south, the constables in front beat their small copper gongs and shouted at the top of their voices: "Make way! Make way! His Excellency the Magistrate is approaching!"
The main street was lined on both sides with shops, and there were many people about. They respectfully made way as the cortege approached.
They passed in front of the Temple of the War God, and after a few turns entered a long, straight street. On the left there was a row of godowns with small, barred windows, on the right a long high wall, here and there broken by a narrow door. They halted in front of the third door, where a small group of people stood waiting.
As the bearers lowered the palanquin a man with an open, intelligent face came forward and introduced himself as Kao, the warden of the southeast quarter. He respectfully assisted the judge in descending from his palanquin.
Looking up and down the street Judge Dee remarked:
"This section of the town seems to be quite deserted!"
"A few years ago," the warden said, "when our Northern Army was still stationed here, the godowns opposite there were used for storing military materiel, and on this side of the street were eight compounds serving as living quarters of the officers. Now the godowns are standing empty, but a few families have come to live in the vacated officers' quarters, and among them were Pan Feng and his wife."
"What in the name of High Heaven," Tao Gan exclaimed, "ever made a curio dealer choose such a lonely neighborhood? You couldn't sell a bean cake here, let alone valuable antiques!"
"Exactly!" the judge said. "Do you know the answer to that, warden?"
"Pan Feng used to take his wares around to the houses of his clients, Your Honor," Warden Kao replied.
A cold blast blew through the street.
"Lead us inside," the judge said impatiently.
They first saw a large, empty courtyard, surrounded by one-story buildings.
"This area," Warden Kao explained, "is divided into units of three houses. In this unit the one in the middle is occupied by Pan, the two others have been empty for some time."
They entered the door straight across the courtyard and found themselves in a large hall, sparsely furnished with a few cheap wooden chairs and tables. The warden took them across to a second, smaller courtyard. There was a well in the center, and a stone bench. Pointing at the three doors opposite the warden said:
"The one in the middle is the bedroom. On the left is Pan's workshop, with the kitchen behind it, and on the right is a storeroom."
Seeing that the door of the bedroom was standing ajar, Judge Dee asked quickly:
"Who has been inside there?"
"Nobody, Your Honor," Warden Kao said. "I saw to it that after we had broken open the door of the main entrance, none of my assistants went farther than this courtyard, so that nothing would be disturbed on the scene of the crime."
The judge nodded his approval. Entering the bedroom he saw that the left side was taken up nearly entirely by a broad oven-bed, covered with a thick, padded quilt. On it lay the naked body of a woman. It was lying on its back, the hands tied together in front, the legs stretched out stiffly. The neck ended in a ragged stump of torn flesh. The body and the quilt were covered with dried blood.
Judge Dee quickly averted his eyes from this sickening sight. Against the back wall, between the two windows, he saw a dressing table; a towel hanging over the mirror was fluttering in the icy wind that blew in through the open windows.