Wang Bide said, “That night, while Boss Bai was performing at the He mansion, this theater here also had most of the evening’s program scheduled, with Yang Yutian being the only one without a number. While the others were busy up front, he was resting in the back. It was only around nine o’clock, when his apprentice came back to the rear garden after removing his stage makeup to find his master, that he discovered Yang Yutian hanging dead in his room. Boss Bai, is that an accurate account of what happened that night?”
A flash of dread crossed Bai Fengfei’s eyes, and she nodded very slowly.
Wang Bide glanced at He Yunqin, who showed no intention of interjecting, so he continued. “The stage is set up in the front courtyard, and the various performers rest in the back courtyard. On ordinary days when the theater is performing, can guests wander freely into the back courtyard?”
Bai Fengfei said, “Except for my own courtyard, which is kept locked, the other courtyards are never locked. Though there are people stationed to watch the back courtyard entrance, if there are many acts that night, the watch inevitably grows lax. There have been times before when guests wandered by mistake into the back courtyard.”
Wang Bide nodded. “So in that case, whenever there are many acts scheduled, guests could wander into the back courtyard at any time? Was it that Yang Yutian decided at the last minute to cancel his performance that night, or had the theater arranged in advance for him to rest that evening?”
Bai Fengfei leaned her arm against the armrest. “In the whole troupe, I’m the only one who never schedules performances in advance. Everyone else is basically fixed in the Keyu Theater’s schedule—to make it convenient for regular patrons to buy tickets ahead of time, the theater posts the program list at the entrance a full month in advance. The night Boss Yang met his end, it happened to be his scheduled night off.”
Wang Bide pursed his lips. “So anyone who saw the program list posted out front could have known, a full month ahead of time, which nights Yang Yutian wouldn’t be performing…”
Hongdou frowned inwardly. When Manager Xu of Langyuan Bookstore had been murdered, the killer had also seemed to know for certain that no one would be home that night, and had specifically chosen that night to act.
If the same person was behind both cases, this person’s cautious, meticulous nature had remained consistent from start to finish.
He Yunqin stared for a long moment at Bai Fengfei’s arm, which had thinned considerably for no apparent reason, then suddenly set down his teacup.
Wang Bide caught the hint, and said with a faint smile, “Boss Bai, to be honest, He Yunqin was originally just at home on leave today with nothing to do—I pulled him in to help on short notice. Ever since I took over Boss Yang’s case, I’ve hardly had a free day trying to find the killer, but the culprit left too few clues behind. After a grueling month of investigation, the only thing I can confirm so far is that Boss Yang did not take his own life. He Yunqin’s knowledge of trace analysis runs far deeper than mine—though he’d heard about this from me before, he hadn’t had the chance to examine the scene himself at the time because he had too much else going on. I went in and looked myself, but worried I might have missed something, so I wanted to ask him to come take another look. He originally didn’t want to get involved in this matter, but couldn’t withstand my repeated requests—all in the interest of solving the case sooner. If Boss Bai doesn’t mind, He Yunqin and I would like to go look at Boss Yang’s room again.”
A flicker crossed Bai Fengfei’s eyes, and she laughed. “I’m hoping with all my heart that Detective Wang can catch the killer soon—how could I mind you finding help? Besides, all of Shanghai knows Mr. He is a man of great learning. If I can get Mr. He to help, I can only be grateful.”
Wang Bide gave a chuckle and, seizing the natural opening, said, “Boss Bai is a straightforward person. In that case, please lead the way.”
Bai Fengfei shook her head with a wry smile. “I don’t mind telling Detective Wang, laugh if you will—ever since Boss Yang’s death, I’ve hardly stayed overnight at the theater. It’s only when I really can’t get out of it that I come by during the day to pick up a show or two. Just the thought of how Boss Yang looked when he died sends chills through me—I simply can’t bring myself to go there no matter what. Since you gentlemen want to go take a look, why not let one of the staff show you the way instead.”
As she spoke, without waiting for Wang Bide to object, she raised her voice toward the door. “Someone come here.”
When a servant came in, Bai Fengfei said, “Detective Wang wants to go take another look at Boss Yang’s courtyard. Be sure to attend to them properly.”
The servant had no wish to go to that unlucky place either, but since these people had all been summoned by Boss Bai herself, none of them dared offend anyone. He reluctantly led He Yunqin and the others to the entrance of the courtyard where Yang Yutian had lived, then shrank back, not daring to go in himself.
This suited He Yunqin and the others just fine. Wang Bide looked at the man with exceeding gentleness. “No need to go in and frighten yourself for nothing—just wait out here. We’ll come out once we’ve had a look.”
The man, as if granted a pardon, gave an awkward laugh and agreed.
He Yunqin took Hongdou by the hand and walked into the courtyard. After a short distance, he pretended casually to glance back at the courtyard gate, then said in a low voice to Wang Bide, “Didn’t you say Bai Fengfei was the one who first approached you to investigate this case? Why was she so evasive just now when you were questioning her?”
Wang Bide snorted coldly. “I find it strange too. That night Bai Fengfei called me, clearly terrified, insisting Yang Yutian couldn’t possibly have killed himself, and offered me a generous fee to find the killer as quickly as possible. But it’s only been a few days, and there’s still no sign of the culprit, yet she already had someone deliver the fee to my residence in advance—clearly meaning to call it off right there. If I hadn’t mentioned on the phone that I’d brought in help, and come to Keyu Theater first thing this morning, she probably wouldn’t even have agreed to see me.”
Hongdou, recalling the scene just now, asked, “Was Bai Fengfei this thin a month ago? That qipao is brand new—how could it be so loose already?”
He Yunqin looked at Hongdou. “A month ago, when she performed at the He mansion, I saw her before her stage makeup was on. She really was much fuller then than she is now.”
Hongdou paused, thinking it over, and nodded. “So she’s clearly been carrying a heavy burden on her mind these days.”
Wang Bide pushed open the door. “Right after it happened, she was desperate to find the killer, but now that the investigation’s actually underway, she’s evasive and unwilling to cooperate, and on top of that she’s lost this much weight in a month—I simply can’t believe Bai Fengfei has nothing to hide.”
The three of them went inside. After looking around the outer room, Hongdou stayed at the doorway leading to the inner room, while He Yunqin and Wang Bide went into the inner room where Yang Yutian had hanged himself.
The moment he entered, Wang Bide said, “I already examined the walls and windowsill before.”
But He Yunqin, as if not hearing him, walked straight to the window.
Hongdou looked up at the roof beam, trying to imagine it—first hoisting a grown man up there, then calmly watching him die right in front of you, and afterward disguising it as a suicide—could one person alone really manage all that?
He Yunqin evidently harbored the same doubt, and had consistently held to the view that this was a joint crime.
And if Bai Fengfei and Gu Yun hadn’t sought out Wang Bide, with his experience in foreign forensic trace investigation, to examine the scene, the killer’s plan might well have gone undetected for a long time, and in the end both cases would naturally have been treated as ordinary hangings—just like what had happened to her aunt back then.
Thinking of this, her heart gave a sudden lurch. Just as she was lost in thought, she heard He Yunqin say with cool sarcasm, “Detective Wang, I’d advise you to drink less. What’s that under the windowsill?”
Wang Bide strode over quickly, crouched down to look, and once he made out what it was, his old face flushed hot with embarrassment.
He Yunqin stood up, holding the object up to examine in the light from the window. Hongdou rose on her toes but still couldn’t make out what it was, and said in a soft, wheedling voice, “He Yunqin.”
Hearing a note of urgency in Hongdou’s voice, He Yunqin handed the object to Wang Bide and said gently to Hongdou, “Come in.”
As he spoke, he pulled a soft measuring tape from his trouser pocket, crouched down, and measured the distance between a certain horizontal line beneath the roof beam and the window.
By this time Wang Bide had already put the object into a palm-sized paper bag, and, struck momentarily speechless, pulled out a Western-style flashlight from inside his coat, half-bent at the waist, straining his eyes to search carefully for any traces he might have overlooked on the walls before.
Hongdou took the object from Wang Bide’s hand—it turned out to be a pale yellow, silk-like fiber, which on closer inspection resembled the kind of hemp rope typically used for tying things. She bent down to look at what Wang Bide was examining, and found there was an inconspicuous, quite deep hollow beneath the windowsill—the fiber must have been caught in that hollow. This hollow had been specially chosen at the joint where the window frame met the wall; unless one looked very carefully, there was no way to notice the hollow hidden in the wall’s seam.
Having finished measuring the floor, He Yunqin straightened up again, looked up at the roof beam, and tossed the measuring tape up, measuring the vertical distance between the beam and the floor. As the tape dangled down, he looked at the number and said with a meaningful smile, “Seems I guessed wrong earlier. If it were a joint crime, why design such a complicated tool? With a method this ingenious for killing someone, the culprit must be an extremely self-assured person—why would he casually bring in an accomplice to spoil his own handiwork? There’s just one thing I can’t figure out—if the killer isn’t someone from inside Keyu Theater, how exactly did he bring the tool used to hang the victim from the beam into the back garden? Carrying such a tool on his person in plain sight of everyone—wasn’t he afraid of arousing suspicion?”
By now Hongdou understood why He Yunqin was measuring these various distances. She’d seen this kind of tool in books before—typically used for farming purposes. If it had been designed in advance, it could hoist not just a 160-pound person, but several hundred pounds.
She said, astonished, “Could the killer have come by more than once?”
He Yunqin was gazing at the roof beam, deep in thought. Hearing this, he turned to look at Hongdou. “I’ve been considering that possibility too. The killer, on his first visit, hid the tool somewhere concealed in the inner courtyard, then after committing the murder, took the tool away with him again.”
He gestured roughly with his hands. “If I were the one making this tool, first I’d need to work out the thickness of the rope and the victim’s weight in advance, otherwise there’d be no way to compress the tool’s size. But even at its smallest, judging from the height of the beam off the floor, the tool would still have to be roughly 50 centimeters by 50 centimeters by 50 centimeters. As for the shape—I have even less idea how one would make that inconspicuous—”
He looked up at Hongdou and Wang Bide. “What could someone hold in their hand while watching a show at the theater without drawing attention?”
Hongdou tilted her head, thinking it over.
Wang Bide, evidently still feeling deflated over having missed a key clue, cut in irritably. “Plenty of things—a birdcage, a gift wrapped in a cloth bundle. If he was determined not to let anyone see what was inside, no one would be so rude as to insist on opening it to look.”
Hongdou said, astounded, “I can’t help but admire him, honestly—if all these assumptions hold true, why would he go through such an elaborate method to kill someone? And another thing—why did he choose Xu Yishan and Yang Yutian, who seem to have no connection to each other at all?”
“The relationships between the victims can be traced out gradually.” He Yunqin rubbed his chin. The killer was this clever—what had begun as mere curiosity on his part had now thoroughly stirred up his competitive spirit. “Right now what interests me most is how to pry open Bai Fengfei’s mouth, and also whether anyone in the troupe saw someone carrying something like a birdcage while watching the show the night Yang Yutian was killed.”
Since Wang Bide was the one who’d taken the generous fee to investigate this case, these matters were naturally his responsibility.
So He Yunqin and Hongdou both turned to look at Wang Bide together.
Wang Bide held out for a moment before caving, saying reluctantly, “I’ll go ask, then.”
He Yunqin still wasn’t satisfied, and pointedly reminded him once more, “Detective Wang, whatever you do, don’t forget to go re-examine the scene at Xu Yishan’s home later.”
Before he could answer, Hongdou, standing beside He Yunqin, added crisply, “And Detective Wang, don’t forget to ask Mrs. Xu whether Xu Yishan knew Yang Yutian in the past.”
Wang Bide gave a cold snort. Without quite realizing how it had happened, he’d once again ended up as He Yunqin’s assistant, and this time with the addition of the sharp-tongued Yu Hongdou as well. His chest felt tight with irritation, and it was a good while before he grumbled, “Don’t worry, I won’t miss anything this time.”
The three of them looked around the room a while longer, and finding nothing more, came out of the inner courtyard.
On the way, Hongdou recalled what had just happened—He Yunqin had clearly intended, just the night before, to go look at Xu Yishan’s home, yet just now it seemed he couldn’t be bothered to go at all. She wondered if this had anything to do with her elder sister-in-law specially sending a servant yesterday to ask after He Yunqin. He Yunqin was ordinarily amiable toward everyone, yet for some reason, whenever he was in front of Duan Mingyi, he always seemed particularly cold. At first she’d assumed it was simply his way of avoiding suspicion given the recent news, but after these past few days together, she couldn’t shake the intuition that He Yunqin seemed to be avoiding Duan Mingyi like the plague for some other reason entirely.
Should she ask him about it tonight? And then there was the matter of the bicycle too—come to think of it, He Yunqin seemed so open and forthright with her, yet if she really thought it through carefully, there were still a great many things she didn’t know.
Author’s Note: Because the case was renamed from the “Tangyuan Case” to the “Five Champions Case,” some earlier details have been revised.