The Willow Pattern

'Mei's death means that one of the three oldest families of the city has become extinct,' a dry voice spoke up behind them.

A thin, lanky man with a slight stoop had come out on the terrace, noiseless in his felt shoes. He wore the brown robe with the broad, gold-embroidered rims and collar of a Chief Secretary, and a high cap of black gauze. He had a long, sardonic face, adorned by a thin moustache and a wispy goatee. Pulling at the three long hairs that sprouted from a wart on his left cheek, he went on:

'Since Mei's two sons died young, and since his second marriage remained childless, the next in line is a distant cousin.'

'Have you managed to read up his file already, Tao Gan?' the judge asked, astonished. 'It became known only this morning that Mei had died last night!'

'I studied the dossier of the Mei family one month ago, sir,' the thin man replied placidly. 'I have been reading the files of all the prominent families, one every night, for the last six weeks or so.'

'I have seen those files in the archives of the Chancery,' Chiao Tai put in. 'Most of them fill several big document boxes! One of those will last you from midnight till morning, I wager!'

'They do, sometimes. But I sleep very little, anyway, and those files make soothing reading. Amusing too, sometimes.'

Judge Dee gave his thin lieutenant a curious look. This quiet man with his laconic wit had been in his service many years, but he kept discovering new traits in him. 'Now that the house of Mei has died out, only those of Yee and Hoo are left of the old aristocracy,' he said.

Tao Gan nodded. 'Between the three of them, they ruled this part of the Empire with an iron hand a hundred years ago, that was in the turbulent period of civil war and barbarian invasions that preceded the founding of our present dynasty, long before this city was chosen as the new Imperial capital.'

The judge smoothed his long beard.

'Curious set, that so-called "old world". They consider all who don't belong to their group as newcomers. Even our Emperor, I believe! I heard that among themselves they still use obsolete noble titles, and still speak a dialect of their own.'

'They purposely ignore the present, sir,' Tao Gan said. 'They keep themselves very much to themselves, and never appear at any official function. There's a lot of inbreeding among them, and a regrettable amount of promiscuity, among masters and servants — a remnant of the old, dis­orderly feudal life. In the midst of this colossal, bustling metropolis they live in a small world of their own, a world apart.'

'Merchant Mei was an exception,' Judge Dee said pen­sively. 'He took his civic duties very seriously indeed. As to Yee and Hoo, I haven't even met them!’