After Ma Joong and Chiao Tai had left, Judge Dee continued to Sergeant Hoong and Tao Gan:

"While our two braves are in Chiang-pei we shan't be idle either. When I was eating my noon rice I was thinking all the time about Liu Fei-po and Han Yung-han, our two main suspects of the murder of the courtesan. Let me tell you that I am not going to sit here quietly, waiting for the next move of those two gentlemen! I have decided to arrest Liu Fei-po today."

"We couldn't possibly do that, Your Honor!" Hoong exclaimed, aghast. "We have only some vague suspicions; how could we-"

"I certainly can arrest Liu, and I shall," the judge interrupted him. "Liu has proffered in this court a serious accusation against Dr. Djang, and that accusation has now proved to be false. I admit that nobody would blame me if I let the matter rest, especially because Liu was evidently beside himself with grief when he made the accusation, and because the professor hasn't brought forward a plaint against him for slander. Yet the law says that he who falsely accuses another of a capital crime shall be punished as if he himself had committed that crime. The law allows a broad margin of discretion in the application of this article, but in this case I choose to interpret it according to the letter."

Sergeant Hoong looked worried, but Judge Dee took his brush and wrote out an order for the arrest of Liu Fei-po. Then he selected a second form, and said while he was filling it out:

"At the same time I'll have Wan I-fan arrested, for giving false testimony in court regarding his daughter and Dr. Djang. Both of you go now with four constables to Liu's house and arrest him. On your way out, Hoong, tell the headman to take two men and arrest Wan I-fan. Let the two prisoners be conveyed here in closed palanquins, and have them locked up in cells that are far apart; they mustn't know that they share the hospitality of our jail! I shall hear both of them during the evening session. I think that then we'll learn a thing or two!"

The sergeant still looked doubtful, but Tao Gan remarked with a grin:

"It's the same as with gambling: if you rattle the dice well, you'll often throw a nice combination!"

When Hoong and Tao Gan had left, Judge Dee pulled out a drawer and took from it the sheet with the chess problem. He was by no means as sure of himself as he had made his two assistants believe. But he felt he had to start the attack, to take the initiative. And the two arrests were the only way he could think of to achieve that aim. He turned round in his chair and took a chessboard from the cupboard behind him. He placed the black and white men in the position indicated in the problem. He was convinced that it was this chess problem that contained the key to the plot discovered by the dead dancer. It had been made more than seventy years before, and the best chess experts had tried in vain to solve it. Almond Blossom, herself not a chess player, must have chosen it not as a chess problem, but because it could be given a double meaning which had nothing to do with chess. Was it perhaps a kind of rebus? Knitting his eyebrows, he began to rearrange the men, trying to read their hidden message.

In the meantime Sergeant Hoong had given the headman instructions regarding the arrest of Wan I-fan and went himself with Tao Gan to the house of Liu Fei-po. The four constables followed them at a discreet distance, with a closed palanquin.

Hoong knocked on the high, red-lacquered gate. When the barred peephole was opened he showed his pass and said:

"His Excellency the Magistrate has ordered us to have an interview with Mr. Liu."

The doorman opened the gate, and led the two men to the small waiting room in the gatehouse. Soon an elderly man appeared who introduced himself as Liu Fei-po's steward.

"I trust," he said, "that I'll be able to be of service. My master is just taking his siesta in the garden; he can't be disturbed."

"We have strict orders to speak to Mr. Liu in person," the sergeant said. "You'd better go and wake him up!"

"Impossible!" the steward exclaimed, horrified. "It would cost me my job!"

"Just take us to him," Tao Gan said dryly. "Then we'll wake him up ourselves! Get going, my friends; don't hinder us in the execution of our official duties!"

The steward turned round, his gray goatee quivering with rage. He crossed a spacious courtyard paved with colored tiles, Hoong and Tao Gan following on his heels. They walked through four winding corridors to a large walled-in garden. Porcelain pots with rare flowers lined a broad marble terrace; beyond there was an elaborate landscaped garden with a lotus lake in the center. Rounding the lake, the steward brought them to an artificial rockery in the back of the garden, consisting of large pieces of rock of interesting shape and color, luted together with cement. Next to it was an arbor, a bamboo framework overgrown with thick ivy. Pointing at the arbor the steward said testily:

"You'll find my master inside there. I'll wait here."

Sergeant Hoong parted the green leaves. In the cool interior he saw only a rattan reclining chair and a small tea table. There was nobody.

The two men quickly rejoined the steward. Hoong rasped at him:

"Don't try to fool us! Liu isn't there!"

The steward gave him a frightened look. He thought for a while, then said:

"He'll have gone to his library."

"Then we'll follow his example!" Tao Gan said. "Lead the way!"

The steward again took them through a long corridor. He halted in front of a black ebony door, decorated with metalwork showing an intricate flower pattern. He knocked several times but there was no answer. Then he pushed, but the door was locked.

"Stand clear!" Tao Gan growled impatiently. He took a small package with iron instruments from his capacious sleeve, and started to work on the lock. Soon there was a click, and he pushed the door open. They saw a spacious, luxuriously furnished library. The heavy chairs and tables and the high bookcases were all made of ebony, elaborately carved. But no one was there.

Tao Gan went straight to the writing desk. All its drawers had been pulled out; the thick blue carpet was strewn with folders and letters.

"There's been a burglar here!" the steward cried out.

"Burglar nothing!" Tao Gan snapped. "Those drawers weren't forced; they have been opened with a key. Where is his safe?"

The steward pointed with a trembling hand at an antique scroll picture hanging in between two bookcases. Tao Gan went up there and pulled the painting aside. The square iron door in the wall behind it wasn't locked. But the safe was completely empty.

"This lock hasn't been forced either," Tao Gan remarked to the sergeant. "We'll search the house, but I fear that the bird is flown!"

After Hoong had called in the four constables, they went over the entire mansion, including even the women's quarters. But Liu Fei-po was nowhere, and no one had seen him after the noon meal.

The two men went back to the tribunal in a morose mood. In the courtyard they met the headman, who told them that Wan I-fan had been arrested without difficulty. He was now locked up in the jail.

They found Judge Dee in his private office, still absorbed in his study of the chess problem.

"Wan I-fan has been placed under lock and key, Your Honor," Sergeant Hoong reported, "but Liu Fei-po has disappeared without a trace!"

"Disappeared?" the judge asked, astonished.

"And taken along all his money and important papers!" Tao Gan added. "He must have slipped out through the garden gate, without telling anybody."