She gave the judge a questioning look, but he made no comment. He took a sip from his tea, then said:
'I don't think that Aster was murdered by mistake, Miss Min. I am convinced that it was indeed she who was the murderer's intended victim. I examined her dead body just now, and found that she was pregnant. Have you any idea who could have been the father of her unborn child?'
'Any man she met!' Kee-yu said venomously. 'She was a lazy, lewd girl, always romping with the young farmhands in the backyard. She thought that nobody knew about her disgraceful behaviour, but I saw it with my own eyes, from the balcony up here. Disgusting, it was! Just like a common streetwalker! And it was she who stole the gold. We thought that she had run away with it. But as soon as I knew that she had been murdered, I realized that the gold must still be here, hidden somewhere in the house. Yes, you are right of course, sir! It was not a murder by mistake! It was her paramour who killed her, to get all the gold! We must find it, sir. Our life depends upon it!'
The judge refilled their cups. 'I heard,' he remarked casually, 'that Aster was a simple, steady girl who looked after your sick father quite well.'
Her face went red with anger.
'She? Look after him? I shall tell you what she did, the insolent hussy! Tried to sell her body to him, that's what she did! My mother had to chase her out of father's room, time and again. I myself once caught her there, straightening the quilts she was, she said. But she ought to have straightened her robe! It was hanging wide open in front; she was showing those fat breasts of hers! That's how she came to know about the key of the strongbox, the sly slut! And all the time that she was toadying up to father, she was playing her sordid little games with a vagabond she met in the fields! And he got her with child. You must interrogate those wretched refugees, sir; the fellow must have sneaked inside here with them. He killed her, to get the stolen gold.'
'Well,' the judge said slowly, 'I do believe that she was murdered by the father of her unborn child. But I don't believe it was just a vagabond. A vagabond could never have had the opportunity for killing her up in your room here. It must have been someone who belonged to the household, who could come and go without anyone's questioning him. That man thought that he was alone with Aster up here when he stabbed her to death. But after he had gone downstairs, he noticed that you weren't there, and he then realized that you must have been out on the balcony all the time, and most probably witnessed the crime. He decided to frighten you into silence. That's why he came up here again, and dressed Aster's body in your robe. In order to warn you that he would kill you too if you opened your mouth. He must be a very worried man by now. Who knew about your hiding place in the loft, Miss Min?'
'Absolutely nobody, sir. I had planned to tell my father last night, after dinner.'
'Quite.' The judge got up and went out on the balcony. In the grey light he saw that the wheelcart for the battering-ram was ready now. The Flying Tigers were leading their horses out of the cave. He sat down again and said:
'There aren't so many persons to choose our murderer from, really. I think that Yen Yuan, the bailiff, is our most likely suspect.' Cutting Kee-yu's protests short by quickly raising his hand, he went on: 'His scant interest in the dead body is suspicious. It makes one think he deliberately avoided seeing it, and not because of the sentimental reason that moved the steward Liao. Yen didn't want to run the risk of being asked why he didn't tell Mr Min that the body was not yours—should something go wrong. For, unlike Mr Min and his old servant, the bailiff, of course, knew you and Aster very well.'
She gave the judge a horrified look.
'Mr Yen is a well-educated, serious young man!' she cried. 'How could he ever so debase himself as to have an affair with a common country wench?'
'I am better qualified than you to assess such entanglements, Miss Min,' the judge said gently. 'Yen impresses me as a man of loose morals, who reluctantly left the city lights. I suspect that his father sent him here because of some sordid amorous affair that made a prolonged absence from the city desirable. His father thus condoned that one mistake. A second one, namely seducing a maidservant in the house of a relative, might well have resulted in his father's expelling him from the family.'
'Nonsense!' she exclaimed angrily. 'Yen had been ill, and he was sent out here for a change of air.'
'Come now, Miss Min! An intelligent girl like you can't possibly believe such a thin story!'
'It is not a thin story!' she said stubbornly. Rising, she resumed: 'Would you now take me to my father, sir? I am anxious to tell him everything. And I also want to consult with him about making another search for the gold. For that is our only hope left. If we don't find it, and quickly too, the bandits will murder all of us!'
Judge Dee got up also.
'I shall gladly take you to your parents, Miss Min. However, before doing so, I want you to accompany me to the watchtower. I shall question Mr Yen, and I want you to be present so that I can verify his statements at once. If he proves to be innocent, we must try to discover the gold by ourselves.' Seeing that she was about to protest, he pointed outside and exclaimed: 'Heavens, they are coming!'
With the frightened girl close by his side, he stared at the dozen or so horsemen that came galloping down the mountain slope. A wooden structure on wheels came behind them. Other bandits were crowding around it, checking its descent.
'They are bringing their battering-ram down!' the judge said excitedly. He grabbed her sleeve and snapped: 'Hurry up, time is pressing!'
'What about the gold?' she cried out.
'Yen will tell us. Come on!'
He dragged the hesitating girl along. As they were rushing downstairs, the alarm gong in the watchtower began to clang. They quickly crossed the yard, where the refugees came pouring out of their quarters, babbling excitedly. While ascending the steep ladder in the watchtower the judge saw out of the corner of his eye two sturdy youngsters climb on the roof of the gatehouse where a large drag-net was lying ready.
'They are coming down, with a ram!' the bailiff shouted when Judge Dee appeared on the platform. 'They have ...'
He broke off in mid-sentence, looking with open mouth at Kee-yu, who was coming up behind the judge.
'You ... you ...' he stammered.
'Yes, I am alive, as you see,' she said quickly. 'I had found a hiding place in the loft, and the magistrate fetched me from there. You did not see the dead body, so you did not know it wasn't me. It was Aster.'
Confused shouts resounded outside the wall, below. Four horsemen were riding up and down there in the grey morning light. They mockingly waved their spears, their tiger-skin capes fluttering in the breeze. The judge looked round at the broad expanse of the muddy river. The water seemed to have risen still higher after the rainstorm. But the mist had cleared; he thought he saw a black spot, in the distance.
Turning to the bailiff, he said harshly:
'Everything has become crystal-clear now, Mr Yen. You and Kee-yu murdered Aster together. She was with child by you, and pressed you to marry her. But your affair with that poor peasant girl had just been a little amusement on the side. You were counting on marrying Miss Kee-yu, the heiress. Kee-yu loved you passionately, but she knew that her father would never give his consent to your marrying her. Kee-yu had been solemnly betrothed to Mr Liang, and he would never give her to a penniless wastrel who was moreover a relative. The arrival of the Flying Tigers suggested an excellent solution of your problem. Kee-yu stole the gold and hid it in a safe place. Then you two murdered Aster. You dressed her in one of Kee-yu's robes; there was no time for putting on underclothes too. Kee-yu hid herself in the loft. You, Mr Yen, would take the necessary measures to prevent anyone else but Mr Min and his old servant from seeing the dead body, and to have it encoffined as soon as possible. Thus everybody would assume that it was Kee-yu who had died. The small stab-wound in Aster's back had been carefully cleaned, and a plaster pasted over it. If Mr Min should have a look at her back, he would think that the plaster had been put on when she was still alive, and that it covered a scratch or something small like that. In fact he did not undress her; there was no reason to, for why should the thought of murder have entered his mind? Since he did not undress her, he did not see that she was not wearing any underclothes — a fact that might have set him thinking.'