'Heavens!' she panted as she let the mangled head drop onto the marble floor. 'What a dead weight the old fool is! Here, help me to push him a little closer to the foot of the stairs.'

She considered the dead body for a while, wiping her wet face with the tip of her sleeve. The transparent gauze of her nightrobe showed every curve of her bare, white body. Looking up, she resumed:

'We'll leave him lying here, I think. Just as if he fell down the stairs. Missed a step while coming down, or got a stroke or an attack of dizziness. Let them take their choice. Anything is possible, at his age.'

Suddenly she shook her head. 'No, I'll put his head right beside this newel here. Then everybody will think that, after he had tumbled down the steps, this pointed newel bashed in his skull, you see. Yes, it's rather messy. You'd better do it. Thank you, that'll do fine. The blood shows very clearly on that white marble top, they can't miss it. Now you go up to his library, fetch the candle, and let it drop at the head of the stairs. Look sharp, it's devilish dark up there.'

She raised her head and anxiously followed him with her large eyes as he climbed the steep marble staircase. It marked the centre of the high, spacious hall, dimly lit by the spluttering candelabra on the wall-table by the moon-door.

It seemed a very long time to her before she saw the light of a candle through the latticework of the red-lacquered balustrade that ran all along the floor above. He let it drop on the marble flags. There was a brief flicker, then all became dark again up there.

'Come down quickly!' she called out impatiently. Stooping over the dead man, she took off one of his slippers and threw it up to the man who was descending the staircase. 'Catch! Well done. Now lay that slipper on a step about halfway up. Yes, that's exactly the right finishing touch!'

Judge Dee stared sombrely at the starless sky. The mass of low, threatening clouds seemed to weigh down on the black silhouettes of the curved roofs and crenelated ramparts all around. His broad shoulders sagged under his gold-embroidered robe as he leaned with both hands on the monumental balustrade of the marble terrace, lit by a single standard-lamp. No sound came up from the city below.

'The Emperor and the Court have left,' he spoke in a harsh voice. 'Now the Spirit of Death rules over the Imperial city. A city of fear.'

The tall man in battledress standing by his side listened silently, a worried expression on his handsome, regular face. The golden badge of two entwined dragons on the breast of his coat of mail indicated that he was a colonel of the guards. He took his right hand from the hilt of the broadsword that was hanging from his belt, and pushed the spiked helmet away from his sweating brow. Even here on the terrace, high up on the fourth storey of the palace, it was stifling hot.

The judge righted himself and folded his arms in his wide sleeves. His eyes still on the dark city, he resumed:

'In the daytime the only people one sees about are the hooded scavengers, dragging along the carts of the dead. And now, at night, there are only shadows. A city of shadows, died out.' He half turned to the other and went on: 'Yet, deep down below, Chiao Tai, in the slums and cellars of the old city, something is stirring, in the brooding darkness. Can't you feel the mounting miasma of death and decay? It seems to spread over the city like a suffocating shroud.'

Chiao Tai nodded slowly. 'Yes, the silence is uncanny, sir. People went about less, of course, even during the first week. But every day the statue of the Dragon King was carried in procession through the streets to make the rain come, and there was the din of the gongs and drums of the Buddhist Temple, sounded during the prayers to the Goddess of Mercy, every morning and every night. But now they have given up all that. To think that we haven't even heard the cry of a street hawker, these last two weeks.'

Judge Dee shook his head. He walked over to the armchair beside the large marble table, littered with files and document rolls. In the rear rose the heavy red pillars of the private office he had installed here, on the top storey of the Governor's palace. It was a point of vantage from which one could overlook the entire capital. As he sat down, the golden insignia of rank attached to the quivering wings of his high cap made a faint tinkling sound. He pulled at the stiff embroidered collar of his ceremonial robe and muttered: 'One can hardly breathe in this foul, stagnant air.' Then he looked up and asked wearily: 'Has Tao Gan worked out the reports of the city wardens tonight, Chiao Tail'

The colonel bent over the table and consulted a half-unrolled document. Frowning, he said:

'The number of deaths is still on the increase, sir. Especially men and grown-up children. The figures for women and infants are considerably lower.'

The judge raised his hands in a helpless gesture.

'We know next to nothing about how it spreads,' he said. 'Some think it is the polluted air, others blame the water, others again say that rats have something to do with it. It is already three weeks since I was appointed Emergency Governor of the Imperial Capital. And I haven't been able to do anything, anything at all.' He tugged angrily at his greying moustache. Then he resumed: 'The warden of the central market complained this afternoon that he can't keep the food distribution going properly. I told him that he'll have to manage, somehow or other. For there is no one to replace Merchant Mei. The few notables who haven't left do not have the confidence of the people. Merchant Mei's fatal accident is nothing short of a calamity, Chiao Tai.'

'Yes, Mr Mei had the rice distribution organized very well indeed, sir. He was on his feet from morning till night, despite his advanced age. And, being enormously rich, he often purchased for the needy cartloads of meat and vegetables, at blackmarket rates. Too bad that the old man should fall down the stairs, and that in his own house!'

'He must have got a seizure when about to descend,' the judge remarked, 'or perhaps a dizzy spell. He can't have missed a step, for I often noticed that his eyesight was still remarkably good. Through that unfortunate accident we lost a good man at the time we needed him most.' He took a sip from the tea Chiao Tai had poured for him and continued: 'That fashionable doctor, Lew his name is, I think, was present. He was the family physician, it seems. Find out where he lives, Chiao Tai, and tell him I want to see him. I had a very high opinion of Merchant Mei, and I would like to ask that doctor whether I can do anything for his widow.'

'Mei's death means that one of the three oldest families of the city has become extinct,' a dry voice spoke up behind them.

A thin, lanky man with a slight stoop had come out on the terrace, noiseless in his felt shoes. He wore the brown robe with the broad, gold-embroidered rims and collar of a Chief Secretary, and a high cap of black gauze. He had a long, sardonic face, adorned by a thin moustache and a wispy goatee. Pulling at the three long hairs that sprouted from a wart on his left cheek, he went on:

'Since Mei's two sons died young, and since his second marriage remained childless, the next in line is a distant cousin.'

'Have you managed to read up his file already, Tao Gan?' the judge asked, astonished....