Poets and Murder

The magistrate sighed and went on sombrely:

'It's damned hard luck, Dee! As soon as I have reported this disgraceful affair, the Metropolitan Court will suspend me, as guilty of dereliction of duty and criminal negligence. I'll be condemned to hard labour on the frontier — if I am lucky, that is! To think that one of my reasons for inviting the woman here was to earn the praise of the panjandrums in the capital, for a kind gesture made to a famous poetess in distress!’ He pulled a large silk handkerchief from his sleeve and mopped his face.

Judge Dee leaned back in his chair. He knitted his bushy eyebrows. His friend was in a very nasty predicament indeed. The Academician could pull strings for him, of course, try to have the case dealt with in the capital behind closed doors. Publicity wouldn't be good for the Academician's town repu­tation either. On the other hand ... no, he was going much too fast. Taking hold of himself, he asked quietly:

'What did the poetess say?'

'She? When she comes into the green-room, she says, and sees the dancer lying there bleeding like a pig, she rushes up to her, and tries to raise her by her shoulders, to see what's wrong! When she sees she's dead, she rushes to us for help. At this moment she's languishing on a couch in my First Lady's room, being pampered with cold towels and what have you!'

'Didn't she say anything about who could have done it?'

'Oh yes. Came across with the same information that flute-player downtown gave you, only with a different slant. Yoo-lan maintains that Small Phoenix was a pure girl, and many nasty, nasty men hated her for that! Says a rejected suitor slipped inside and killed her. Thus suggesting to me the easy way out! I left her without making any comment, only asked her to keep to the story of the dancer's accident, for the time being.'

'What about the coroner's report?'

'Nothing there we didn't know or couldn't have guessed, Dee. Confirmed she had been killed shortly before we saw her, ten, fifteen minutes at the most. Added that she was a virgin. Which doesn't astonish me a bit. That pinched face, flat bosom! Well, the last people who saw her alive were two young dancing-girls, who brought Small Phoenix tea and cakes just before they packed up and went back to the Sap­phire Bower. Then the wench was as right as rain.'

'What did the servants say? And the musicians?'

'Still thinking of that unknown intruder, eh? No such luck! Have been questioning everybody, together with my counsellor. The musicians watched the fireworks from the side-hall, and none of them left the room. And all that time there were a number of servants about, on the main stairs, and on the staircases at either end of the balcony. Impossible for your unknown intruder to have got up to the second floor unnoticed. Grilled everybody about a possible connection with the dancer. Nothing doing. She was a pure girl, remember! Also, that pair of scissors was of course a typical woman's weapon. Fine, complete case! Beautifully simple.' He pounded the table with his fist. 'Great heavens, what a trial it'll be! Nation-wide sensation! And me on the wrong side of the bench, mind you! A disgraceful ending to a promising career!’

The judge remained silent for some time, pensively caress­ing his sidewhiskers. At last he shook his head doubtfully.

'There is an alternative solution, Lo. But I am afraid you won't like that either!’

'Can't say you are a comforting kind of chap, elder brother. But let's have it anyway. A man in my desperate position'll clutch at a straw!'

Judge Dee put his elbows on the table.

'There are no less than three other suspects, Lo. Namely your three distinguished dinner guests.'

The small magistrate jumped up.

'You've had one too many, Dee, at dinner!’

'I probably had. Else I'd have thought earlier of the alterna­tive. Go back to when we were watching the fireworks from the balcony, Lo. Can you visualize us as we were standing there at the balustrade? The poetess was on my left, and you were standing beside her. A little further on were your coun­sellor and your housemaster. Now although your firework display was lovely, I did look about me from time to time, and I know that none of us stirred from the balustrade. But I don't know about Shao, Chang and the sexton, who were somewhere behind us. I got a glimpse of the Academician once at the beginning, and again at the very end of the dis­play, when he came forward together with Chang and Sexton Loo. Did you see any one of them while the fireworks were going on?'