Poets and Murder

'Holy heaven, my poems!’ Lo exclaimed.

Judge Dee helped him to collect and sort out the papers strewn over the table. He accompanied his colleague to the second courtyard, then walked on alone to the tribunal.

Counsellor Kao was waiting for him at the gatehouse, where a large official palankeen stood ready.

'The physician and the matron are in that closed litter, sir,' he informed the judge. While they were being carried out­side through the monumental arched gate, Kao resumed, 'The wasteland could be made into a public park, sir. It won't do to have right within our city walls an area where all kinds of ruffians can gather. Don't you agree, sir?'

'I do.'

'I hope you found in the archives what you were looking for this morning, sir.'

'I did.'

Perceiving that the judge was not in the mood for a leisurely conversation, Counsellor Kao kept silent. When they were passing through Temple Street, however, he began again:

'Yesterday morning I visited Sexton Loo in the temple at the end of this street, sir. I had quite some difficulty in per­suading him to accept His Excellency's invitation. The sexton accepted only after I had told him you were a guest in the residence too.'

Judge Dee sat up.

'Did he say why?'

'He mentioned your great reputation as a criminal investi­gator, sir. And something about an interesting experiment, about foxes, if I remember correctly.'

'I see. Do you have any idea what he could've been refer­ring to?'

'No, sir. The sexton is a very strange person. He seemed particularly keen on stressing he had arrived here the night before, but ... Heavens, why are we halting here?' He looked outside.

The foreman of the bearers came up to the window, and reported to the counsellor:

'There's a crowd blocking the road, sir. Just one moment, please, I told them to make way.'

Judge Dee heard the confused noise of excited voices. Their palankeen went on for a while, then halted again. A sergeant of the guard appeared at the window. Saluting sharply, he told Kao:

'I am sorry, sir, but you had better not go on. The witch from the deserted temple has got the dog's madness. She ...'

The judge quickly pulled the door-screen aside and stepped down from the palankeen. Six guards with levelled spears had formed a cordon across the street, keeping a small group of curious people away. Further down Saffron was lying sprawl­ed on her back by the roadside, her still figure pitifully slight in the tattered, soiled robe. Two soldiers had pinned her neck down to the ground, with a forked thiefcatcher's stick ten feet long. A little further, in the middle of the empty road, other soldiers were lighting a bonfire.

'Better not come near, sir,' the sergeant warned Judge Dee. 'We're going to burn the dead body, to be quite sure. Don't know too much about how the sickness is transmitted.'

Counsellor Kao had come up to them. 'What happened, Sergeant?' he asked sharply. 'Is that woman dead?'

'Yes, sir. Half an hour ago, my men sitting in that street-stall heard wild screams from the brushwood over there, and a weird barking sound. Thinking that a mad dog was attack­ing someone, they rushed to the guardhouse, and we came back here with forked sticks. Just as I was about to enter that old gate there, the witch came running outside, scream­ing at the top of her voice. Her face was distorted something terrible, and there was foam coming from her mouth. She made for us, but one of my men caught her throat in the fork of his stick, and threw her on to the ground. She grabbed at the stick, thrashing about so violently that it needed a second man to keep her pinned down. At last her hands drop­ped away, and she was dead.' The sergeant pushed his iron helmet back and wiped his moist brow. 'What a wonderful man our magistrate is, sir! He must have been expecting something like this to happen! I got orders to post a few of my men in that stall there and keep an eye on the old gate. That's why we could be on the spot before she had attacked some of the passers-by.'

'Our magistrate is a deep one!’ a soldier said with a grin.

Judge Dee beckoned the physician who had stepped down from the other litter.

'The dead woman had rabies,' he told him curtly. 'You agree the body should be burned?'

'Certainly, sir. Also the forked stick she was caught with. And the brushwood she came from had better be burned down too. It's a terrible disease, sir.'

'Stay here and see that everything is done properly,' the judge ordered Counsellor Kao. 'I am going back to the tribunal.'