Free Poisoned Bride and Other Judge Dee Mysteries by Robert H. van Gulik

Then he said to the woman:
    “That your daughter is such a constant widow is indeed worthy of the greatest praise and admiration. I shall stay at your place just long enough to prepare your medicine, and leave immediately after, without even drinking a cup of tea, or insisting on the other amenities”.
    The woman, seeing that Judge Dee consented, was overjoyed, and said:
    “I shall first go home alone, and explain to my daughter, and then come back here”.Judge Dee, fearing lest her daughter would not allow her to come back, said quickly:
    “That would not do. After having prepared your medicine, I must hurry on to the city, to attend to my business there. You make a lot of conditions, despite the fact that, as I presume, you have not enough money to give me a suitable fee for my trouble. Yet I am willing to go with you, taking as my sole reward the enhancing of my reputation as a skilful physician. But then we must start right now”.
    Then he gathered up his drugs and herbs, and, having with a deep bow taken leave of the crowd of spectators, he departed together with the woman.
    They passed through some narrow alleys, and then came to a small modest dwelling in a backstreet. A girl about seven years old, who had been standing in front of the door, came running to meet them with evident joy, as soon as she saw them approaching from afar. With one hand she took the woman by her sleeve, and with the other she gesticulated wildly; but the only utterance she made were some incoherent sounds.Judge Dee, seeing that this young girl was dumb, said:
    “Who is this girl that has lost the power of speech? Was she born this way?”
    But the woman had already opened the front door, and hurried inside, apparently to apprise her daughter in advance of their arrival. Judge Dee feared that the daughter-in-law would disappear before he would be able to catch a glimpse of her, so he quickly followed the woman inside. At the back of the courtyard he saw a one-storied dwelling of three rooms next to each other. The door of the room on right opened, the occupant evidently having heard the sound of the front door; she looked through the half open door, right into the face of Judge Dee.
    He thus saw this daughter-in-law. She was a woman of about thirty, wearing a simple house dress, and not yet made up; but this did not hamper her voluptuous beauty. Judge Dee could well imagine that one glance of her would be enough to make men dizzy. Her forehead was snow-white and beautifully shaped, and her cheeks were a rosy colour.
    On seeing a stranger entering the courtyard, she hastily withdrew into her room with a cry of annoyance, and immediately locked the door. From within Judge Dee heard her scolding her mother-in-law, crying:
    “You wicked old woman, now you bring even a miserable quack to our house. After a few days of quiet, I shall again have to quarrel with you the whole evening. Why do I deserve this bad luck?”
    Hearing this language, Judge Dee thought that he could make a good guess at what was really going on there. “This young woman must be a bad person”, he thought, “and up to nothing good. Now that I have gone as far as this, I shall not leave here before I know something more, no matter how I am cursed and reviled.”
    He sat down on a seat in the courtyard, and said politely: “This humble person is now visiting your mansion for the first time, and has not yet even inquired your honourable name. And that young girl who came to meet us is, I presume, your worthy granddaughter”.
    “Our surname”, the woman answered, “is Bee. My late husband was called Bee Chang-shan, and my son was called Bee Hsun. Alas, after his demise he only left me this small granddaughter of seven years old”.
    Thus speaking she drew the young girl close to her, and started crying. Judge Dee said:
    “Madam, it is already quite late now, please bring me a portable tea stove, so that I can boil the medicine. But, by the way, as a doctor I am