The bailiff stared at him, dumbfounded. The judge resumed:
'Well, I believe every word you said just now. Kee-yu was indeed the main criminal, you only her will-less tool. But you are an accomplice to a cruel murder, and therefore you shall be beheaded on the scaffold.'
'Scaffold?' Yen laughed shrilly. His sobbing laughter became mixed with dull thuds from below. 'Listen, you fool! The Flying Tigers are breaking the gate down!'
The judge listened silently. All of a sudden the thuds ceased. It was dead quiet for a brief while. Then there were suddenly loud shouts and curses. The judge leaned over the balustrade.
'Look!' he ordered Yen. 'See how they run!'
The bandits had abandoned the battering-ram. The horsemen were frantically whipping up their horses, while those on foot ran behind them as fast as they could, towards the mountain slope.
'Why ... why are they running away?' the bewildered bailiff stammered.
The judge turned round and pointed at the river. A large war-junk was being borne swiftly to the shore, the long oars beating the waves in a quick rhythm so as to keep the ship at the right angle for being beached. Coloured banners were fluttering above the long halberds and peaked helmets of the soldiers that crowded the deck. In the stern many caparisoned horses stood tethered close together. Behind the junk came a second one, slightly smaller. Its deck was piled with logs and coils of thick rope. Small men in brown leather jackets and caps were busily mounting wheels to low carts.
'I sent a letter to the commandant of the fortress, last night,' the judge spoke in a level voice. 'I explained that the notorious Flying Tigers were marooned here, and asked for a cavalry force, and a detachment of sappers. While the soldiers are rounding up the bandits, the sappers will repair the bridge over the gap, to enable my escort to get across and join me. In the meantime I shall wind up this murder case here. I expect I shall be able to leave at noon. For I am under orders to proceed to the Imperial capital without undue delay.'
The bailiff stared at the approaching junks with unbelieving eyes.
'How did you get that letter to the fort?' he asked hoarsely.
'I organized flying tigers of my own,' the judge replied curtly. 'I wrote about a dozen identical letters, sealed them and handed them to one of the youngsters whom I had seen flying kites in the afternoon. I told him to attach each copy to a large kite. He was to fly them one after the other. Each time one was high up in the air, he was to cut the string. With the north wind blowing steadily, I hoped that at least one or two of the brightly-coloured kites would reach the village on the opposite bank, be found and taken to the commandant of the fort. And that is what happened. This is the end of the Flying Tigers, Mr Yen. And your end too.'
POSTSCRIPT
Judge Dee was a historical person. He was born in the fourth year of the Chen-kuan period of the Tang dynasty, i.e. a.d. 630. He died in a.d. 700.
His biography in the Annals of the Tang dynasty states that, during the first half of his long and distinguished official career, when he was serving as district magistrate in the provinces, he solved a great number of difficult criminal cases. Hence he became famous in China as one of the great detectives of former times. He is also celebrated as one of China's great statesmen, for in the second half of his career, after he had been appointed to high office in the capital, he played an important role in the internal and external politics of the Tang Empire. All this is historical fact. The two stories told here, however, are entirely fictitious, and the towns mentioned — Han-yuan, Pei-chow, etc. — have no real existence.
It may be added that astronomy is a very ancient science in China, and that there also it is believed that stellar signs influence the life and destiny of man. The endpapers show a Chinese zodiac, with an explanation of the Chinese sexagenary cycles. There the twelve signs of the zodiac are arranged around the Two Primordial Forces yin (negative, female, darkness) and yang (positive, male, light) and the Eight Triagrams, pa-kua. The halved circle in the centre portrays the eternal interaction of the dual forces yin and yang (cf. the explanation on p. 59 of my novel The Haunted Monastery, published by William Heinemann Ltd, London, 1961). The eight triagrams represent the eight possible combinations of one broken yin and one unbroken yang line; these triagrams form the basis of the ancient Book of Divination (cf. The I Ching or Book of Changes translated by Richard Wilhelm, with an introduction by C. G. Jung, London, 1950). The dustcover of the present volume is decorated with the same symbolic diagram, with the Chinese characters for 'monkey' and 'tiger' in their archaic forms superimposed and in their correct zodiac positions: west-south-west and east-north-east.
In Chinese astrology a person's character and career are analysed on the basis of the cyclical signs under which he is born, and formerly no betrothal was concluded until a comparative study of the cyclical signs of the year, date and hour of birth of either partner had proved the couple to be well matched.
Judge Dee was born in a.d. 630, i.e. the year VII-3, a year of the Tiger, belonging to the element metal, and influenced by the planet Venus. The date and hour of his birth have not been recorded.
As to the seven-stringed lute (in form resembling a psaltery) that is mentioned in the second story, it should be noted that the Chinese consider its music the highest expression of classical, purely Chinese musical art; it produces a quiet, refined music, entirely different from, for instance, later Chinese theatre music, which was greatly influenced by the music from Central Asia. In China good antique lutes, ku-ch'in, are prized as highly as a Stradivarius violin with us, and there also the secret of the superior tone rests on the quality of the varnish covering the sound-box. Connoisseurs judge the age of an antique lute by the shape of the tiny bursts that in course of time appear on the lacquered surface. Readers interested in this fascinating subject may be referred to my book The Lore of the Chinese Lute, Monumenta Nipponica Monographs, Sophia University, Tokyo, 1940.
ROBERT VAN GULIK
Robert van Gulik entered The Netherlands Foreign Service in 1935. He has served in various posts in China, Japan, East Africa, Egypt, India, Lebanon and the United States. Since 1963 he has been Director of Research, Netherlands Foreign Ministry, The Hague.
A world renowned orientalist, he has made a hobby of writing Chinese detective stories set in the time of the Tang Empire.