'Now then, the gage was Zumurrud. You had bought her, so you possessed her body. That was all. You thought you would win her love if only you could gratify the one desire that dominated her, namely to be raised from her pariah status to that of a great Chinese lady. Since that could be done only by one of the highest metropolitan officials, you decided you would become one of those. You had to act upon that decision quickly, for you were obsessed by the fear of losing her, either to a man she would fall in love with, or to one who could make her realize her ambitions. Mansur fell in love with her. Apparently she did not care for him, but you feared nonetheless that sooner or later her Arab blood would speak, and therefore you wanted to eliminate Mansur. Then you heard from one of your friends in the capital that a powerful person at court, close to the Empress and her clique, was looking for a means to ruin the Imperial Censor Lew, and was willing to reward handsomely anyone who could help to achieve that aim. That was your chance! You began at once to work out a scheme, carefully planning the moves that would win you the queen. You put an ingenious proposal before that person at court. You...'
'Let's have everything neat and orderly!' Liang interrupted testily. 'That person is Wang, the Chief Eunuch of the Imperial Seraglio. Our contact was a mutual friend, the wealthy wine-merchant who is purveyor to the court.'
Judge Dee grew pale. The Emperor mortally ill; the Empress tormented by her perverse passions; the sinister, hybrid figure of the Chief Eunuch ... he suddenly saw the hideous pattern.
'Now guess what position he promised me! Yours! And with the backing of the Empress I shall rise higher still! My father was the Subduer of the South Seas. I shall be the Subduer of the Empire!'
'Quite,' Judge Dee said wearily. 'Well, you proposed to lure the Censor to Canton by giving him to understand that the Arabs were planning a revolt, with the connivance of an unnamed person at Court. You would fan Mansur's foolish ambitions, so that when the Censor came to investigate he would indeed find something brewing here. Then you would have him murdered, and accuse Mansur. When questioned under severe torture, Mansur would be made to confess that the Censor had backed his plot. Neat solution! Mansur out of the way, the Censor dead and his reputation smeared, and you going to the capital, together with Zumurrud.
'The game opened exactly as you had planned. The Censor came here incognito, to check the rumours about unrest among the Arabs. He did not dare to inform the authorities of his visit, because it had been suggested to him that a person at court was involved in the scheme, and he wanted to discover who that was, of course. However, he came also for another reason, then unknown to you. On his first visit to Canton the Censor had met Zumurrud, and they had fallen in love with each other.'
'How could I have foreseen that she would meet him in that confounded temple?' Liang muttered. 'She...'
'That is where life differs from chess, Mr Liang,' Judge Dee cut him short. 'In real life you have to reckon with unknown factors. Well, after the Censor had studied the situation here together with Dr Soo, he suspected that a trap was being laid for him. He approached Mansur and feigned to sympathize with his seditious plans. He probably even helped Mansur and two of his accomplices to smuggle arms into the city. When Mansur reported this to you, you knew that your scheme was succeeding even better than you had expected: if Mansur was brought to justice, he would have to confess only the truth! But since you realized that the Censor was fooling Mansur, you decided to speed up his murder.
'Then Zumurrud poisoned the Censor. She had to tell you everything, and...'
'Had to tell me, you say?' Liang shouted suddenly. 'She always insisted on telling me! Every time, directly after she had slept with one of her vulgar, stray lovers! Tormented me by telling all the sordid, unspeakable details, then laughed at me!’ Burying his face in his hands, he sobbed. 'That was her revenge, and I ... I could do nothing. She was stronger than me. The fiery blood pulsated in her veins, while mine was thin, thinned by two generations....' He looked up, his face haggard. Taking hold of himself, he said harshly, 'All right, she had not told me about the Censor before, because he was going to take her away. Proceed! Time is getting short.'
'Just at that time,' Judge Dee continued calmly, 'I and my two assistants arrived. Ostensibly to inspect foreign trade. You suspected that I had come to investigate the Censor's disappearance. You had my two lieutenants closely watched, and found your suspicions confirmed by the interest they displayed in the Arabs here. You decided that we fitted nicely into your game. For who could better denounce Mansur's treacherous scheme than the President of the Metropolitan Court? Your only problem was Dr Soo. Zumurrud had said that Dr Soo was ignorant of her affair with the Censor, but you had to make sure. Now Dr Soo must have become worried when the Censor did not return to their inn that night, and the next morning, that is the day before yesterday, he roamed along the waterfront looking for him. You had him followed by one of Mansur's Arab assassins, and one of your own Tanka stranglers. They reported in the afternoon that Dr Soo apparently knew Colonel Chiao, and that he followed my lieutenant when he left the wine-house. You ordered the Tanka to assist the Arab in killing Dr Soo, but to strangle him before he could kill Chiao Tai. For you wanted to spare Colonel Chiao so that he could follow up Dr Soo's murder, which would, in due course, further strengthen the case against Mansur.
'Then, however, you had a stroke of bad luck. My man Tao Gan happened to meet the blind girl. She must be your sister, the one you said had died in an accident. For Tao Gan mistook Mrs Pao for her, and so did your Tanka killers whom you had sent to Yau's house. She evidently wanted to prevent you from ruining yourself, and...'
'The sanctimonious little fool!’ Liang interrupted angrily. 'She is the cause of all my troubles, for she wilfully threw away a splendid future, by my side. She and I inherited my father's talents; our younger sister was nothing but a stupid woman, swayed by her ludicrous petty passions! But Lan-lee! When the old houseteacher was reading the classics with us, she would understand at once the most difficult passages! And she was beautiful! My boyhood ideal of the perfect woman! I often spied on her when she was bathing, her...' Suddenly he fell silent. He swallowed a few times before he went on, 'After we had grown up and our parents died, I spoke to her about our ancient myths, of the Founding Saints of our Empire, who took their sisters as spouse. But she, she refused, said awful, terrible things to me, said she would leave me, and never come back. So I put boiling oil into her eyes while she was asleep. For how could I allow a woman who had dared to scorn me ever to look upon another man? Instead of cursing me, she pitied me, the little hypocrite! In a rage I set fire to her room, I wanted to ... to...' He choked, his face distorted in impotent anger. After a while he resumed, calmer, 'She had said she would never come back, but recently she would come to snoop here in my house, the slick bitch. I heard that she had met my two men who brought the Censor's body here before taking it to the temple, and had stolen that damned cricket. Although she knew nothing of my scheme, she was clever enough to put two and two together. Fortunately my men spotted her when that assistant of yours took her home, and they eavesdropped on their conversation. The nasty bitch was setting you on my trail by saying that she had caught the cricket near the temple where the Censor's body was. So I brought her here and locked her up. But she escaped the next morning, just after breakfast. How she managed to do that, I still...'
'It was indeed the clue of the cricket that led me to the temple,' Judge Dee said. 'My discovery of the Censor's dead body was an unexpected setback for you; you had wanted the body to disappear, so that the Tanka poison would not be identified. Later you would make Mansur confess that he had thrown it into the sea, I presume. However, you succeeded in turning this setback into your favour. During my visit here you cleverly suggested that the Arabs had close contacts with the Tanka, implying that Mansur had ample opportunity for obtaining the poison. So everything was going very well indeed. Then, for the second time, the human element cut across your beautiful game. Colonel Chiao met Zumurrud and fell in love with her. Your spies reported that he visited her on the boat yesterday morning, evidently slept with her. What if she had persuaded him to spirit her away to the capital? What if she had inadvertently given him a clue to your identity? Chiao Tai had to go. He was to be killed in Nee's house.' The judge looked thoughtfully at his host and asked, 'By the way, how did you know that Chiao Tai would call there a second time?'