"Is this Mr. Woo a silk merchant too?", asked the sergeant.

"No", the proprietor answered, "he is a kind of painter. I don't claim to be a judge in these matters but I have heard people say that he is quite good. And I would say that he is bound to be, for he is at it from morning till night!" Walking over to the stairway he called up: "Master Woo, here are two gentlemen with the latest news from the capital!"

A voice shouted from upstairs:

"I can't leave my work just now. Let them come up!"

The wine merchant was visibly disappointed. The judge consoled him by leaving a generous tip on the table.

They climbed the wooden stairs.

The second floor consisted of one large room lighted by a row of broad lattice windows in front and at the back, pasted over with fine white paper.

A young man clad in outlandish garb was working on a picture representing the Black Judge of the Nether World. He wore a gaudy jacket and his head was covered by a high turban of coloured silk such as is worn by some barbarian tribes over the border.

JUDGE DEE IN WOO FENG'S STUDIO

The painter had spread the silk canvas out on the huge table that stood in the middle of the room. The wall space between the windows was covered entirely by a great number of finished pictures, provisionally mounted on paper scrolls. A bamboo couch stood against the back wall.

"Sit for a while on that couch, gentlemen!", the young man said without looking up from his work, "I am putting in some blue paint here and if I stop the colour will not dry evenly."

Sergeant Hoong sat down on the couch. Judge Dee remained standing and looked with interest at the young man as he was deftly handling his brush. He noticed that the picture, though expertly drawn, showed a number of unfamiliar features, especially in the treatment of the folds in the dresses and of the faces of the persons represented. Looking round at the pictures hanging on the wall the judge found that all of them showed these same foreign features.

The young man added a last stroke, then straightened himself and started washing his brush in a porcelain bowl. As he did so he gave the judge a penetrating look. Slowly moving the brush round in the bowl he said:

"So Your Honour is the new magistrate. Since evidently you are here incognito, I shall not embarrass you with the usual formalities!"

Judge Dee was quite taken back by this sudden statement.

"What makes you think that I am a magistrate?", he asked.

The young man smiled condescendingly. He left the brush in the jar. Folding his arms he leaned back against the table so that he faced Judge Dee and remarked:

"I fancy myself as a portrait painter. Now you, Sir, are the very prototype of a judge. Pray observe this Infernal Judge on this picture here! You could have sat as model for it, though I admit it is by no means a flattering portrait!"

The judge could not forbear smiling. He realized that it was no use to try to fool this clever young man. So he said:

"You are not mistaken, I am indeed Dee Jen-djieh, the new magistrate of Lan-fang, and this is my lieutenant."

Woo nodded slowly. Looking straight at the judge he said:

"Your name is well known in the capital, Sir. Now to what am I indebted for the honour of this visit? I don't think you have come to arrest me. That job you would have left to your constables."

"What", Judge Dee inquired, "makes you think that you might be arrested?"

Woo pushed his turban back.

"Sir, please forgive me for skipping all the usual polite preliminaries. Let me save your time and mine. This morning the news spread that the old General Ding had been murdered. That, by the way, is just what the hypocritical scoundrel deserved. Now that sneaking son of his has been passing the word around that I, the son of Commander Woo who is known to be the General's arch-enemy, intended to kill him. Young Ding has been snooping in this neighbourhood for more than a month, trying to worm information about me out of the proprietor of the shop here, at the same time telling all kinds of slanderous tales.

Doubtless young Ding has now accused me of having killed his father. An ordinary magistrate would have sent out his constables to arrest me immediately. But you, Sir, are known as a man of unusual perspicacity. So you thought you would first come round here yourself and see what I looked like."

Sergeant Hoong had been listening with mounting anger tot his nonchalant statement. Now he jumped up exclaiming:

"Your Honour, the insolence of this dogshead is unbearable!"

Judge Dee raised his hand. He said with a thin smile:

"Mr. Woo and I understand each other perfectly, Sergeant! I for one find him rather refreshing!"

As the sergeant sat down again the judge continued:

"You are right, my friend. Now I shall be as direct as yourself: why did you, the son of a well known military commander in the Board of Military Affairs, settle down all alone in this out-of-the-way place?"

Woo looked round at his pictures on the wall.

"Five years ago", he replied, "I passed the examination for Junior Candidate. To the disappointment of my father I then resolved to break off my studies and devote myself to painting. I worked under two famous masters in the capital but was not satisfied with their style.

Two years ago I happened to meet a monk who had come all the way from Khotan, the tributary kingdom in the far west. That man showed me his style of painting, full of life and exciting colours. I realized that our Chinese artists ought to study that style in order to renew our national art. I thought that I might become the pioneer and resolved to travel to Khotan myself."

"Personally", the judge remarked dryly, "I find our national art perfectly satisfactory and I fail to see what a barbarian foreign nation could ever teach us. But I don't pretend to be a connoisseur. Pray proceed!"

"So I wangled travelling funds from my good father", Woo went on. "He let me go in the hope that this was youthful extravagance, and that some day I would return as a sedate young official. Until two years ago the route to the western kingdoms led via Lan-fang, thus I came here. Then I found that this route had been abandoned for the northern one. Now the plains to the west of this town are inhabited only by roaming Uigur hordes, people without art or culture."

"That being so", Judge Dee interrupted him, "why did you not leave this district at once and travel north to continue your journey?"

The young man smiled.

"That, Sir, is not so easy to make you understand. You must know that I am a lazy man and much given to moods. Somehow or other I felt comfortable here and thought that I might as well stay on for a while and practise. Moreover I took a liking to this house. I am mighty fond of wine and it suits me to have my dealer right under the same roof. That man has an uncanny intuition for a good wine and his stock can compare with the best shops in the capital. So I just stayed on here."

The judge did not comment on this statement. He said:

"Now I come to my second question. Where were you last night, say from the first to the third night-watch?"

"Here!", the young man replied immediately.

"Have you witnesses who can testify to that?"

Woo sadly shook his head.

"No", he replied, "it so happened that I did not know that the General was going to be murdered last night!"

Judge Dee went to the stairway and shouted for the proprietor.

When his round face appeared at the bottom of the stairs the judge called out:

"Just to settle a friendly argument. Did you notice whether Master Woo went out last night?"