"We have been over this many times already, and I-" He quickly caught himself up and went on with an apologetic smile, "I told you that I am sick and tired of studying criminal caseson paper!" Magistrate Dee had been tugging impatiently at his long, coalblack beard. He said testily to the young magistrate, "It's the fact that it's so completely unnecessary that irks me most! You had the post of junior secretary in the Metropolitan Court of justice for the asking! Then you would have become a colleague of our friend Hou here, we could have continued our pleasant life together here in the capital, and you-" Secretary Liang put down his wine cup with a determined gesture. Two wore the brocade caps of junior secretaries the third, whom they were seeing off, the black cap of a district magistrate. The difficult last moments had come, when one gropes in vain for the right words. The three friends had partaken of a simple noon meal now the time of parting was drawing near. Two workmen in the cemetery down at the back of the hillock had sought shelter under an old pine tree, huddling close together.
The sky was overcast, the spring rain was coming down in a dreary drizzle that looked as if it would never cease.
As indicated in the above-quoted poem engraved on its main gate, the pavilion derived its name from this double function. Ever since people could remember, this old, three-storied restaurant, built on a pine-clad hillock, had been the traditional place where metropolitan officials were wont to see off their friends leaving for posts in the interior, and where they came again to bid them welcome when, their term of office completed, they returned to the capital. THREE men wer silently sipping their wine on the top floor of the Pavilion of Joy and Sadness, overlooking the highway crossing outside the north gate of the imperial capital. Officials come and go, but justice and righteosness remain,Īnd unchangeable remains forever the imperial way. Where joy and sadness alternate like night and day Meeting and parting are constant in this inconstant world, THREE OLD FRIENDS PART IN A COUNTRY PAVILION A MAGISTRATE MEETS TWO HIGHWAYMEN ON THE ROAD HAI-YÜEH, abbot of the White Cloud Temple. Persons connected with " The Case of the Butchered Bully"įAN Choong, chief clerk of the tribunal of Peng-lai. KIM Sang, Koo Meng-pin's business manager. TSAO Ho-hsien, her father, doctor of philosophy. Persons connected with " The Case of the Bolting Bride" WANG Te-hwa, Magistrate of Peng-lai, found poisoned in his library. Persons connected with " The Case of the Murdered Magistrate" TANG, senior scribe of the tribunal of Peng-lai. MA Joong amp CHIAO Tai, the two trusted assistants of judge Dec. Referred to as "Sergeant Hoong," or "the sergeant." HOONG Liang, Judge Dee's confidential assistant and sergeant of the tribunal. Referred to as "Judge Dee," or "the judge," "the magistrate," etc. It should be noted that in Chinese the surname-here printed in capitals-precedes the personal name.ĭEE Jen-djieh, newly appointed magistrate of Peng-lai, a town district on the northeast coast of Shantung Province. The reader will find a pictorial map of Peng-lai in the front of the book, and in the Postscript information on the ancient Chinese judicial system, taken over, with a few changes, from the preceding volume of the series, together with an account of the Chinese sources utilized.Ī map of the district Peng-lai is in the front of the book,Ī map of a section of Peng-lai. Chiao Tai had taken part in the previous campaign of 661 as a captain over hundred. During the successful Chinese Korea campaign in the autumn of the preceding year, when they defeated the combined Korean-Japanese forces, the girl Yü-soo had been carried away as a war slave.
According to the chronology of judge Dee Mysteries, Judge Dee arrived in Peng-lai in the summer of A.D. Then the Tang Emperor Kao-tsung (64ß-683) had just succeeded in establishing Chinese suzerainty over the greater part of Korea. that of magistrate of Peng-lai, a port city on the northeast coast of Shantung Province. THE CHINESE GOLD MURDERS takes us back to the beginning of Judge Dee's career when, thirty-three years of age, he had been appointed to his first post in the provinces, viz. A Judge Dee Detective Story with ten plates drawn b y the author in Chinese st y le PREFACE
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