"The supreme effrontery of this audacious plan was worthy of the mastermind who was directing the scheme. At last I understood the meaning of the weird incident Ma Joong and Chiao Tai had witnessed in the mist, on the bank of the canal. I consulted the city map, and saw that Koo's mansion was located near the first bridge. I realized that in the mist you two must have misjudged the distance you covered, and thought it was near the second bridge that you had witnessed the incident. And it was there that the next day you made your inquiries. Yee Pen lives near there, and that strengthened for a while my suspicions of that unscrupulous but innocent businessman. But apart from that, your eyes hadn't played a trick on you. Only Koo's men didn't club a living man, they broke to pieces the clay model of the statue that Koo had secretly made for casting the mold of the golden statue! It was that mold that Koo sent to the unsuspecting abbot of the White Cloud Temple in the rosewood box. Hui-pen opened the box, and used the cremation of the body of the almoner as pretext for making the blazing fire needed for melting the assembled gold bars and casting the golden statue. I saw with my own eyes the rosewood box, and I wondered about so great a fire being necessary for cremating a body. But I suspected nothing. Well, half an hour ago, when we proceeded from the temple to Koo's mansion and searched it, we found the cedarwood statue made by Master Fang neatly sawn asunder in a dozen or so pieces. Those Koo planned to send to the capital, to be put together there again and offered to the White Horse Temple, while the golden statue would be brought to the leader of the scheme. The clay model could easily be disposed of. It was broken to pieces and dumped into the canal. Ma Joong stepped on the pieces, with the paper coating still attached to them."
"Well," Ma Joong said, "I am glad to know that I still can trust my own eyes. I was getting a bit worried about my having mistaken a basket with garbage for a sitting man!"
"Why did Dr. Tsao join that criminal scheme, your honor?" the sergeant asked. "After all, he is a man of letters, and-"
"Dr. Tsao loved luxury," the judge interrupted. "He couldn't get over the loss of his money, which forced him to leave the city and live in that old tower. Everything was false about that doctor, even his beard! When Koo approached him and promised him a large share in the profits, he couldn't resist the temptation. The staff the almoner Tzu-hai. was carrying that night when he met Mrs. Koo and Po Kai contained a bar of gold, part of the doctor's share he was receiving regularly. Koo made a bad mistake when he let his desire for Miss Tsao prevail over his caution, and ordered Dr. Tsao to marry her to him. That proved to me that there was a connection between those two men."
Judge Dee sighed. He emptied his teacup, then resumed.
"Koo Meng-pin was an utterly ruthless, greedy man, but he was not the leader of the ring; he had only been acting on orders. But I couldn't let him name his employer. For that man could have other agents here, who would have warned him. This very nightor rather this very morning!-I shall send posthaste to the capital the platoon of mounted military police you saw waiting outside in the courtyard, to forward my accusation of that man to the president of the Metropolitan Court. By the way, their corporal informed me just now that the military police have caught that fellow Woo, Fan's servant, when he was trying to sell the two horses. He had indeed discovered the murder just after Ah Kwang had left the farm. Woo was afraid he would be suspected of having committed the crime, and fled with the cash box and the horses, exactly as we had surmised."
"But who was the archcriminal who led the smuggling scheme, your honor?" Sergeant Hoong asked.
"Of course that treacherous scoundrel Po Kai!" Ma Joong shouted.
Judge Dee smiled.
"As to the sergeant's question," he said, "I really can't answer that, because I don't know who that criminal is. I am waiting for Po Kai to supply me with his name. As a matter of fact, I am wondering why Po Kai hasn't shown up yet. I expected him to come here immediately after our return from the temple."
As his three assistants burst out in astonished questions, there came a knock on the door. The headman rushed inside and reported that Po Kai had calmly walked in through the main gate of the tribunal. The guards had arrested him at once.
"Show him in," the judge said in an even voice. "Without the guards, mind you."
When Po Kai came in the judge quickly rose and bowed. "Please be seated, Mr. Wang," he said to him politely. "I have been looking forward to this meeting, sir!"
"So have I!" the visitor replied placidly. "Permit me, before we get down to business, to clean myself up a bit!"
Ignoring the three men who were staring at him dumbfounded, he walked over to the tea stove, took a towel from the hot water basin and carefully rubbed his face. When he turned round, the purple spots that gave his face its bloated appearance and the red nosetip had vanished, and his eyebrows were now thin and straight. He took a round piece of black plaster from his sleeve and stuck that on his left cheek.
Ma Joong and Chiao Tai gasped. That was the face they had seen in the They both exclaimed at the same time. "The dead magistrate!"
"His twin brother," Judge Dee corrected them, "Mr. Wang Yuan-te, senior secretary of the Board of Finance." To Wang he continued, "That birthmark must have saved you and your brother much embarrassment, sir, not to speak of your parents!"
"It has indeed," Wang answered. "Apart from that, we were as much alike as two peas in a pod. After we had grown up it didn't matter any more, though, for then my poor brother was serving in the provinces, while I always remained in the Board of Finance. Not many people knew indeed that we were twins. But that is neither here nor there. I came to thank you, magistrate, for your brilliant solution of my brother's murder, and for supplying me with the data I needed for righting the false accusation his murderer brought forward against me in the capital. I was present at the gathering in the temple tonight, disguised as a monk, and heard how you have successfully unraveled this complicated plot, while I never got further than vague suspicions."
"I suppose," Judge Dee asked eagerly, "that Koo's employer is a high official in the capital?"
Wang shook his head.
"No," he replied. "It is a fairly young man, but very old in depravity. A junior secretary in the Metropolitan Court called Hou, the nephew of our secretary-general, Hou Kwang."
The judge grew pale.
"Secretary Hou?" he exclaimed. "He is one of my friends!" Wang shrugged his shoulders.
"Often," he remarked, "one makes mistakes in judging one's closest friends. Young Hou is a gifted man. In due course he would certainly have risen high in official life. But he thought he could find a short cut to wealth and influence by swindling and deceiving, and when he saw that he had been discovered, he did not hesitate to commit a base murder. He was very favorably placed for evolving his evil schemes. For through his uncle he knew every-thing about the affairs of our Board of Finance, while as a secretary of the Court he had access to all documents there. It was he who was the leader of the plot."