‘I understand, Mayor Pei. With a suspect refusing to own up, I would have done the same thing in the courtroom. Indeed, how could she have claimed that she savagely beat the maidservant to death and buried her in the backyard in a drunken stupor without knowing anything about it?’

‘Exactly. It did not make any sense, did it?’

‘No, it did not. But she then made a modified statement in prison, didn’t she?’

‘But what do you think of the second statement, Your Honor?’

‘There’re quite a number of holes in her second statement, too. To begin with, it’s possible for her to get blind drunk, but to kill someone without a conscious motive or reason is simply too incredible.’

‘You can say that again,’ Mayor Pei said, nodding vigorously. ‘With the far-from-admissible “confession” made by her in prison, with the men of letters clamoring that she simply gave in to the horrible torture in the prison cell, and at the same time, with people high above pressing for a speedy yet acceptable conclusion, I’m really at my wits’ end.’

‘What is an acceptable conclusion? Indeed, it’s such a tough case for you. As it seems to me, Mayor Pei, the crux of the matter for you is how to get a truthful, convincing confession from her. In that event, those men of letters would clamor no more, and the people above, whoever they might be, would no longer have the pretext to push. Things would then become acceptable to the people concerned.’

‘But how, my celebrated Judge Dee? She will not say anything more, and I cannot give her another beating in the courtroom, nor in the prison cell. Already so many protests and complaints have popped up like crazy cicadas screeching non-stop in the summer.’ Pei added after a short pause, ‘Has Minister Wu discussed the case with you?’

‘He sent me a brief case report, but it sheds little light on the complexities of the case. There’re a lot of unanswered questions in it.’

‘Last night, I restudied her second statement. It’s practically as unconvincing as the first one. Furthermore, whatever changes were made in that statement, it makes no difference for the conclusion of the case. It still spells the death sentence for her.’

‘Perhaps she cannot bear it in the prison cell any longer. She, too, wants a quick conclusion – death sentence or not. She came up with what she considered a more convincing confession, so you would have the case closed.’

‘That may be true.’

‘Alternatively, she could have tried to cover up something or somebody with such a conclusion of the murder case.’