Judge Dee at Work

Suddenly, he heard a plopping sound behind him. He swung round, startled. Then he sighed with relief; it was only a large, green frog. It had jumped up out of the pond on to the marble steps of the pavilion. Now it sat there looking up at him solemnly with its blinking, protruding eyes.

'You can't talk, bastard!’ the man sneered. 'But I'll make double-sure!’ So speaking, he gave the frog a vicious kick that smashed it against the table leg. The animal's long hindlegs twitched, then it lay still. The man picked up the second wine cup, the one his victim had been drinking from. He examined it, then he put it in his wide sleeve. Now he was ready. As he turned to go, his eye fell on the dead frog.

'Join your comrades!' he said with contempt and kicked it into the water. It fell with a splash among the lotus plants. At once the croaking of hundreds of frightened frogs tore the quiet night.

The man cursed violently. He quickly crossed the curved bridge that led over the pond to the garden gate. After he had slipped outside and pulled the gate shut, the frogs grew quiet again.

A few hours later three horsemen were riding along the lake road, back to the city. The red glow of dawn shone on their brown hunting-robes and black caps. A cool morning breeze rippled the surface of the lake, but soon it would grow hot, for it was mid­summer.

The broad-shouldered, bearded man said with a smile to his thin, elderly companion, 'Our duck-hunt suggested a good method for catching wily criminals! You set up a decoy, then stay in hiding with your clap-net ready. When your bird shows up, you net him!'

Four peasants walking in the opposite direction quickly set down the loads of vegetables they were carrying, and knelt down by the roadside. They had recognized the bearded man: it was Judge Dee, the magistrate of the lake-district of Han-yuan.

'We did a powerful lot of clapping among the reeds, sir,' the stalwart man who was riding behind them remarked wryly. 'But all we got was a few waterplants!'

'Anyway it was good exercise, Ma Joong!’ Judge Dee said over his shoulder to his lieutenant. Then he went on to the thin man riding by his side: 'If we did this every morning, Mr Yuan, we'd never need your pills and powders!'

The thin man smiled bleakly. His name was Yuan Kai, and he was the wealthy owner of the largest pharmacy in Judge Dee's district. Duck-hunting was his favourite sport.

Judge Dee drove his horse on, and soon they entered the city of Han-yuan, built against the mountain slope. At the market place, in front of the Temple of Confucius, the three men dis­mounted; then they climbed the stone steps leading up to the street where the tribunal stood, overlooking the city and the lake.

Ma Joong pointed at the squat man standing in front of the monumental gate of the tribunal. 'Heavens!' he growled, 'I have never seen our good headman up so early. I fear he must be gravely ill!'

The headman of the constables came running towards them. He made a bow, then said excitedly to the judge, 'The poet Meng Lan has been murdered, Your Honour! Half an hour ago his servant came rushing here and reported that he had found his master's dead body in the garden pavilion.'

'Meng Lan? A poet?' Judge Dee said with a frown. 'In the year I have been here in Han-yuan I have never even heard the name.'

'He lives in an old country house, near the marsh to the east of the city, sir,' the pharmacist said. 'He is not very well known here; he rarely comes to the city. But I heard that in the capital his poetry is praised highly by connoisseurs.'

'We'd better go there at once,' the judge said. 'Have Sergeant Hoong and my two other lieutenants come back yet, Head­man?'