Slowly the judge climbed the stairs leading up to the third floor. Every step hurt him and his back was aching. He had to rest a while on each landing. When at last he knocked on the door of his own quarters, he was swaying on his feet.
In the dressing room the maids were busy fanning the coals in the brazier, heating the morning rice.
Judge Dee and His Three Wives
When he entered the bedroom, he found that his three wives had just risen. The window curtains were still drawn, and in the dim light of the candles the room was cosy and warm. The First Lady sat with bare torso by the dressing table and the two others, still in their bed-robes, were helping her to do her hair.
Judge Dee sat down heavily at the small tea table. He took off his cap, removed the bandage and felt the bruised spot. As he carefully replaced his cap, his third wife gave him a searching look and asked anxiously: "I hope that my bandage helped?"
"It most certainly did!" the judge replied with feeling.
"I knew it would!" she said happily. Handing him a cup of steaming tea she added: "I'll draw the curtains and open the shutters. I hope the storm has blown over."
Slowly sipping his tea, the judge followed his First Lady's graceful movements as she combed her long tresses, looking intently into the round mirror of polished silver that his second wife held up for her. He passed his hand over his eyes. In these peaceful surroundings the horrors of the past night suddenly seemed nothing but a weird nightmare.
His First Lady gave her hair a final pat. She thanked the other who had been assisting her. Pulling her bed-robe up round her bare shoulders she came over to the tea table and wished the judge a good morning. Noticing his haggard face she exclaimed: "You look all done in! What on earth have you been at all night? I saw you come in once to take things from our medicine chest. Has there been an accident?"
"A person fell ill," Judge Dee replied vaguely, "and we needed some drugs. Then there were a few odds and ends that had to be attended to. Now everything has been straightened out."
"You shouldn't have been gadding about all night, and that with your cold!" she said reprovingly. "Well, I'll quickly make you a nice bowl of hot gruel, that'll do you good!" Passing by the open window she looked out and added briskly: "We'll have a pleasant trip back to Han-yuan. It's going to be a beautiful day!"
THE HAUNTED MONASTERY COLOPHON
JUDGE DEE was a historical person who lived from 630 to 700 A.D. In the earlier part of his career when he served as magistrate in various country districts, he earned fame as a detector of crimes, and later, after he had been appointed at Court, he proved to be a brilliant statesman who greatly influenced the internal and foreign policies of the T'ang Empire. The adventures related here, however, are entirely fictitious, although many features were suggested by original old Chinese sources. The clue of the cat's eyes, for instance, I borrowed from an anecdote told about the Sung scholar and artist Ou-yang Hsiu (1007-1072 A.D.); he possessed an old painting of a cat among peonies, and pointed out that it must have been painted at noon, because the flowers were wilting, and the cat's pupils mere slits.
The Chinese professed three creeds, Confucianism, Taoism and Buddhism, the last having been introduced from India in the first century A.D. Since old Chinese detective and crime stories were written in the main by Confucianist scholars, that literature evinces a pronounced partiality to Confucianism, a feature which I adopted in my Judge Dee novels. The characterization of Confucianist and Taoist ideals given in the present novel is based on authentic Chinese texts.
The plates I drew in the style of 16th century Chinese illustrated block prints, especially the fine Ming edition of the Lieh-nü-chuan (Biographies of Illustrious Women). Those plates represent, therefore, costumes and customs of the Ming period, rather than those of the T'ang dynasty. Note that in Judge Dee's time the Chinese did not wear pigtails; that custom was imposed on them after 1644 A.D. when the Manchus had conquered China. The men did their long hair up in a top-knot, and wore caps both inside and outside the house. Tobacco and opium were introduced into China many centuries later.