Min took him inside and up a broad staircase next to the entrance of the hall, to a large, dimly-lit landing on the second floor. There were several doors there, presumably of the family quarters. Mr Min knocked softly on the door on the left. It was opened a crack, and the wrinkled face of an old woman appeared. Min whispered a few words to her. After a while the door was opened wide. Min motioned the judge to follow him inside.
The cloying smell of medicinal herbs hung heavily in the overheated room. It came from a steaming jar that stood upon the large bronze brazier on the floor, in the farthest corner. The brazier was heaped with glowing coals. The simply furnished room was brilliantly lit by two tall brass candelabra on the side table. The back wall was taken up entirely by an enormous canopied bedstead of intricately carved ebony, its heavy brocade curtains drawn apart. Mr Min bade the judge sit down in the armchair at the head of the bed; he himself took the low footstool next to it. The old woman stood herself at the foot, her hands folded in the long sleeves of her dark-grey robe.
Judge Dee looked at the old man who was watching him from his raised pillow with lack-lustre, red-rimmed eyes. They seemed abnormally large in the hollow, deeply lined face. Untidy strands of grey hair stuck to his high, moist forehead, a straggling grey moustache hung over the thin, tightly compressed mouth. A tangled white beard lay on the thick silken coverlet.
'This gentleman is Magistrate Dee, elder brother,' Mr Min spoke softly. 'He was on his way south, to the capital, but was caught by the flood. He ...'
'I saw it, saw it in the almanac!' the old landowner suddenly said in a high-pitched, quavering voice. 'When the Ninth Constellation crosses the Sign of the Tiger, it means dire disaster. The almanac says so, very clearly. It means disaster, and violence. Violent death.' He closed his eyes, breathing heavily. After a while he went on, his eyes still closed: 'What was it again, the last time that the Sign of the Tiger got crossed? Yes, I was twelve then. Had just started to ride on horseback, I had. The water rose and rose, it came up to the steps of our gatehouse. I saw with my own eyes how ...' He was interrupted by a racking cough that shook his thin shoulders. The old woman quickly stepped up to the bed, and made her husband drink from a large porcelain bowl.
When the cough had subsided, Mr Min resumed:
'Magistrate Dee has to stay here, elder brother. I was thinking that the side room downstairs might ...'
Suddenly the old man opened his eyes. Fixing the judge with a brooding stare, he mumbled:
'It all fits. Exactly. The Sign of the Tiger. The Hying Tigers have come, the flood has come, I have fallen ill, and Kee-yu is dead. We shan't be able to bury her, even ...' He made an ineffectual effort to raise himself to a sitting position; claw-like hands came out from under the coverlet. Sinking back against the pillow, he croaked at Mr Min: 'They will hack her dead body to pieces, the devils, You must try to ...' He choked. His wife hastily laid her arm round his shoulders. The old man's eyes closed again.
'Kee-yu was my brother's daughter,' Mr Min told the judge in a hurried whisper. 'She was only nineteen, a very gifted girl. But she suffered from bad health. Weak heart, you know. All this excitement was too much for her. Last night, just before dinner, she died. A sudden heart attack. My brother was very fond of her. The sad news caused a serious relapse, he ...' He let the sentence trail off.
The judge nodded absent-mindedly. He had been looking at the high cupboard against the side wall. By its side stood the usual pile of four clothes boxes, one for each season, then a large iron box, its lid secured by a heavy copper padlock. As he turned his head, he found the sick man staring at him. There was a crafty gleam now in the large eyes. His wife had gone to the brazier in the corner.
'Yes, that's where the gold was!' the old man cackled with a broad grin. 'Forty shining gold bars, magistrate! The value of two hundred gold pieces!'
'Aster stole it, the lewd slut!' a dry, cracked voice spoke up behind the judge. It was the old woman. She was fixing the sick man with a malevolent stare.
Aster was the young maidservant,' Min said to the judge with an embarrassed air. 'She disappeared last night. Joined the bandits.'
'Wanted to bed with those beasts. With every single one of them,' the old woman rasped. 'Then clear out. With the gold.'
The judge got up and walked over to the strongbox. He examined it curiously.
'The lock hasn't been forced,' he remarked.
'She had the key, of course!' the old woman snapped.
The thin hand of the old man clutched at her sleeve. He gave her an imploring look. He wanted to speak but only incoherent sounds came from his twitching mouth. Suddenly tears came trickling down his hollow cheeks.
'No, she didn't take it! You must believe me!' he said, sobbing. 'How could I, sick as I am ... Nobody pities me, nobody!' His wife bent over him and wiped his nose and mouth with a handkerchief. The judge averted his eyes and bent again over the strongbox. It was covered with thick iron plates, and there was not a single scratch on the solid padlock. When he turned to the bed, the old man had regained his composure. He said dully to the judge:
'Only I, my wife and my daughter knew where the key was. Nobody else.' Slowly a sly smile curved his thin, bloodless lips. He stretched out his right hand and felt with thin, spidery fingers along the edge of the bedstead. The wood was carved into an intricate motif of flowers.
Aster was hanging about here all the time, especially when you had fever!' the old woman said venomously. 'You showed it to her without even knowing it, you!'
The old man chuckled. His thin fingers had closed round a flowerbud carved in the wood. There was a click and a small panel in the edge of the bed opened. In the shallow cavity lay a large copper key. Giggling with childish delight, he made the panel open and close several times in succession.
'A strapping, comely wench!' he cackled. 'Best peasant stock.' A little saliva came dripping from the corner of his mouth.
'You ought to have been thinking about your daughter's marriage, instead of about that hussy!' his wife remarked.
'Oh yes, my dear daughter!' the landowner said, suddenly serious again. 'My dear, so very clever daughter!'
'It was I who arranged everything with the Liang family, it was I who selected the trousseau!' the old woman said in a querulous voice. 'While you, behind my back ...'
'I mustn't take too much of your time,' the judge interrupted her. He motioned Mr Min to rise.
'Wait,' the sick man shouted all of a sudden. He regarded the judge with eyes that now were hard and wary. Then he said in a steady voice: 'You will stay in Kee-yu's room, magistrate.'
He heaved a deep sigh and closed his eyes again.
As Mr Min took the judge to the door, the old woman squatted down by the brazier and begun to stir the coals with a pair of copper tongs, muttering angrily.
'Your brother is very ill,' the judge remarked to Mr Min while they were descending the staircase.
'He is indeed. But we'll all be dead. Soon. Kee-yu was lucky, she died in peace.'
'Just before her marriage, apparently.'
'Yes, she had been engaged to young Liang, the eldest son of the owner of the large estate beyond the fort, for quite some time. They were to be married next month. Fine young fellow. Not too handsome, but of a staunch character. I met him in the city once, with his father. And now we can't even notify them that she's dead.'
'Where did you put her body?'
'In a temporary coffin, in the Buddhist house chapel. Behind the hall.' Arrived at the bottom of the stairs, Min exclaimed: 'Ha, I see that Yen and Liao are waiting for us already. You don't want to go up to your room first, I suppose? No need to, you know. There's a washroom in the outhouse, just outside the door here'