Soon he saw Judge Dee coming down the broad staircase, accompanied by Feng Dai and Tao Pan-te. While the two men were conducting him to his palankeen, the judge said to Feng:
'Tomorrow morning I'll come to your office directly after breakfast for the formal court session. See to it that all papers regarding the Academician's suicide are ready for me. I also want your coroner to be there.'
Ma Joong helped the judge to ascend the palankeen.
While they were being carried along, Judge Dee told his lieutenant what he had learned about the suicide. He discreetly omitted his discovery of Magistrate Lo's infatuation, confining himself to the remark that his colleague had been right in calling the suicide a routine matter.
'Feng's men don't share that view, sir,' Ma Joong said soberly. He reported in detail what the Crab and the Shrimp had told him. When he had finished, the judge said impatiently:
'Your friends are wrong. Didn't I tell you that the door was locked on the inside? And you saw the barred window. No one could get in through there.'
'But isn't it a curious coincidence, sir, that when Tao's father committed suicide in that same room thirty years ago, the old curio-dealer was seen there too?'
'Your two aquatic friends let themselves be carried away by their resentment against Wen, the rival of their boss Feng. They evidently want to cause trouble for the curio-dealer I met him tonight, he is indeed a nasty old man. I wouldn't put it beyond him to scheme against Feng and try to replace him as warden of Paradise Island. But murder is quite a different proposition! And why should Wen want to murder the Academician, the very man whose help he was enlisting for ousting Feng? No, my friend, your two informants were contradicting themselves. And let's not get mixed up in these local bickerings.' He thought for a while, pensively pulling at his moustache. Then he resumed: 'What Feng's two men told you about the Academician's activities during his stay here nicely completes the picture. I met the woman he killed himself for. Met her twice, worse luck!'
After he had related the conversation on the veranda of the Red Pavilion, he added:
'The Academician may have been an able and learned scholar, but he can't have been a good judge of women. Although the Queen Flower is indeed a striking beauty, at heart she is a callous, fickle creature. Fortunately she attended only the second half of the dinner. The food was excellent, I must say, and I had an interesting conversation with Tao Pan-te, and with a young poet called Kia Yu-po.'
'That is the unlucky fellow who lost all his money at the tables!' Ma Joong remarked. 'And in one sitting, too!'
Judge Dee raised his eyebrows.
'That's odd! Feng told me that Kia will soon marry his only daughter!'
'Well, that's one way for a man to get his lost money back!' Ma Joong said with a grin.
Their palankeen was set down in front of the Hostel of Eternal Bliss. Ma Joong picked a candle up at the counter, then they crossed the courtyard and walked through the garden to the dark corridor leading to the Red Pavilion.
Judge Dee opened the carved door of the antechamber. Suddenly he stood stock-still. Pointing at the ray of light that came from under the door of the Red Room on the left, he said in a low voice:
'That's strange! I distinctly remember that I doused the candles before leaving.' He stooped, then added: 'And the key I left in the lock has gone.'
Ma Joong pressed his ear to the door. 'Can't hear anything! Shall I knock?' 'Let's first have a look through the window.' They quickly went through the sitting-room out on to the veranda, and tiptoed to the barred window. Ma Joong uttered an oath.
On the red carpet, in front of the bedstead, lay a naked woman. She was flat on her back, legs and arms stretched out, her head turned away from them.
'Is she dead?' Ma Joong asked in a whisper. 'Her breast doesn't move.' The judge pressed his face to the iron bars. 'Look, the key is in the lock!'
'That makes it the third suicide in this accursed room!' Ma Joong exclaimed worriedly.
'I am not so sure it's suicide,' Judge Dee muttered. 'I think I see a blue bruise on the side of her neck. Go to the office and tell the manager to fetch Feng Dai, at once! Don't say anything about our discovery, though.'
When Ma Joong had rushed off, the judge peered inside again. The red curtains of the bedstead were drawn open, exactly as when he had left. But next to the pillow he saw a folded-up white garment. More woman's clothes were piled up on the nearest chair, also neatly folded. A pair of diminutive silk shoes were standing in front of the bedstead.
'The poor, conceited wench!' he said softly. 'She was very sure of herself! And now she is dead.'
He turned away from the window and sat down by the balustrade. Sounds of singing and laughter came drifting over from the house in the park, the party there was still in full swing. Only a few hours ago she had been standing there at the balustrade, flaunting her voluptuous body. She had been a vain and pretentious woman, yet one shouldn't judge her too harshly, he thought. The fault lay not with her alone. The exaggerated veneration for physical beauty, the cult of carnal love, and the hectic hankering after gold that prevail in such an amusement resort must spoil a woman, giving her a distorted view of all values. The queen of the island's flowers had been rather a pathetic person, after all.
He was roused from his musings by the arrival of Feng Dai. He came out on the veranda accompanied by Ma Joong, the manager, and two sturdy men.
'What happened, sir?' Feng asked excitedly. Judge Dee pointed at the barred window. Feng and the manager stepped up to it. They shrank back with a gasp. The judge rose.
'Tell your men to break the door open!' he ordered the warden.
In the antechamber Feng's two henchmen threw themselves against the door. When it didn't budge, Ma Joong joined their efforts. The wood round the lock splintered away and the door swung open.
'Stay where you are!' Judge Dee ordered. He stepped over the threshold and from there studied the prone figure. He couldn't see any wound or traces of blood on Autumn Moon's smooth white body. But she must have died in a terrible manner for he saw now that her face was horribly distorted, the glazed eyes were bulging from their sockets.
He went into the room and squatted down by the side of the dead woman. He placed his hand under her left breast. The body was still warm, the heart must have ceased beating not so long ago. He closed the eye-lids, then examined her throat. On either side were blue bruises. Someone must have throttled her, but there were no marks of fingernails. He went over the perfect body. There were no other signs of violence, only a few long, thin scratches on her forearms. They looked quite recent, and he was certain those hadn't been there when he saw her practically naked on the veranda. He turned the corpse over, but the shapely back showed no marks of any kind. Finally, he scrutinized her hands. The long, carefully tended fingernails were intact. Under them he found only bits of fluff from the red carpet.
He rose and surveyed the room. There were no signs of a struggle. He motioned the others to come inside, and said to Feng Dai:
'It's clear what brought her here, after our dinner. Apparently she had expected to pass the night with me in order to start a liaison. She had been under the mistaken impression that Magistrate Lo would buy her out, and when she found she had been wrong, she decided that I might do as well. While she was waiting for me here, something happened. For the time being we'll call it accidental death, for as far as I can see nobody could have entered this room. Tell your men to remove the body to your office, for the autopsy. Tomorrow morning I shall deal with this case at the court session. Summon Wen Yuan, Tao Pan-te and Kia Yu-po to appear there too.'