The Willow Pattern

'I quickly got up. Clutching my breast I slipped into the dressing-room. I grabbed my clothes and my guitar and ran downstairs as fast as I could. In the passage downstairs I dressed somehow or other, then ran across the courtyard. No one was there. I went outside through the narrow door in the gate, pulling it shut behind me.'

She heaved a deep sigh. Ma Joong offered her a cup of tea. But she shook her head and resumed:

'I aimlessly walked through the empty streets, trying to think out what had happened. Evidently Mr Hoo had been spying again on Yee. When he saw me standing naked on the couch, his violent temper got the better of him. He must have jumped into the canal and climbed up on the balcony. Then, however, Yee must have told him who I really was, and that would have made them patch up their quarrel, the two men sitting down together to devise a horrible scheme for ruining us. I became panicky again, and tried to keep up my spirits by singing a little song. Then those two awful scavengers tried to assault me, and then that doctor ... It was the most wretched night I ever had.'

Tears were glittering in her eyes. She wiped them off impatiently and went on:

'Fortunately my sister was not at home. My father didn't scold me, but he said that we would have to leave the city at once, to escape the vengeance of Mr Hoo and Yee. When we heard that Yee had been murdered ...'

Her voice trailed off. She cast a shy look at the judge. He was leaning back in his chair, slowly caressing his side­whiskers.

'Thank you, Miss Yuan,' he spoke. 'It was indeed a terrible experience. However, you are a plucky girl, and you are very young. The young easily forget, a privilege not shared by older persons, unfortunately.' Turning to the puppeteer, he asked in a gentle voice: 'Why did you include that hideous scene of your wife's murder in your peep-show?’

'To keep my hatred alive, my lord,' Yuan replied at once. Then he looked away. The lines of his mobile actor's face suddenly deepened. He resumed, awkwardly groping for words: 'I have some ... some doubts, at times. About things, in general. I think of the milieu Yee was reared in, the "old world", with all its antiquated ideas of absolute power, all its frustration... .' He looked at the judge and said apologetically: 'It's my puppets that give me those strange ideas, I fear. When I met Mr Ma in the tavern, I had been brooding again. And suddenly I felt that I had to look again at ... at that incident, had to talk about it.' He shook his head. His voice was firm again when he con­cluded: 'Well, my scheme was indeed successful, after all. Hoo and Yee must have got into a violent quarrel. Hoo murdered Yee, and you have arrested him already, I hear. I fully understand that I shall have to accept the con­sequences of my actions, my lord.'

Judge Dee studied his drawn face for a while. Suddenly he asked Coraclass="underline"

'Did Yee pay you for your performances, Miss Yuan?’ 'No sir. He wanted to several times. But Hunchback Wang always told him that it would be included in the final settlement.'

'In that case,' the judge said, 'there is no charge against you, Mr Yuan, nor against your daughter. It was wrong of you to try to take justice in your own hands, but it would be most difficult to construct a case against you on that ground. Moreover, who shall say whether Yee and Hoo did not have other bones to pick between the two of them, apart from their jealousy over your daughter? As for her, there is no rule forbidding a girl to dance gratis, even in the nude. Here, take these trinkets, Miss Yuan. The red coral goes well with your name!'

Yuan wanted to speak, but the judge raised his hand.

'Yee was a despicable relic of an abominable age,' Judge Dee said gravely. 'And yet, Mr Yuan, the impartial justice I just spoke of requires that his murderer, although he freed the world of a cruel monster, shall be beheaded, unless he can prove it to have been manslaughter. For if people were allowed to take justice in their own hands, the rule of law would cease, and everybody would be at his neigh­bour's mercy. I have arrested Hoo because he tried to assault your daughter Bluewhite——'

'Mr Hoo assaulted Bluewhite?' Yuan exclaimed. 'When——'

'You had better ask her that yourself,' Judge Dee said curtly.

'The wench never tells me anything!' the puppeteer said angrily.

'Anyway,' the judge went on, 'attempted rape is a capital charge, so Hoo's head shall fall on the scaffold. Tell your daughter that I said that. It will set her mind at rest. You may go.'

Yuan and his daughter fell on their knees and began to thank the judge. But he told them to rise and said:

'If you want to do me a favour, Mr Yuan, then make it known in the "old world" that there is justice for high and low, rich and poor. And that even in a time like the present, when hundreds die from the plague every day, the death of every single person who dies by violence shall be duly investigated and avenged. Good-bye!’