A Loyal Character Dancer

your observations that more than once threw light on the situation.”
     
    “You are being very diplomatic, Chief Inspector Chen.”
     
    “No, I am not. Do you remember our talk in the Verdant Willow Village? You called my attention to a fact: Despite Feng’s request in his last phone call to Wen, she did not try to contact him when she reached an apparently safe place.”
     
    “Yes, that puzzled me, but I was not so sure then that she was in a safe place. That was the seventh or eighth day of her disappearance, I think, the day we had that discussion in the restaurant.”
     
    “Then in Deda Cafe, you convinced me that Gu knew something more than what he had told us. That prompted me to explore further in that direction.”
     
    “Oh no, I cannot take credit for that. At the club, you had already told Gu about your connection with the Traffic Control Office—” She stopped herself at a glance from Chen. Had he told Party Secretary Li about the parking lot deal? Or even the visit to the club?
     
    “You did an excellent job in dealing with a man like Gu, Chief Inspector Chen,” Li commented. “ ‘You have to fish for a golden turtle with a sweet-smelling bait.’”
     
    “Thank you, Party Secretary Li,” Chen said with surprise. “And then in the evening after the Beijing Opera, following your instruction, I walked Inspector Rohn back to the hotel. On our way, we had some drinks in Bund Park. There I mentioned the two cases I had been assigned to on the same day—the park victim case, and the search for Wen. She touched on the possible connection between the two. I had never thought about such a possibility until that evening. More importantly, she discussed the ax wounds on the body in connection with a Mafia novel, in which a murder was committed in such a way as to direct suspicion onto to a rival gang—”
     
    “The ax wounds suggested a triad killing. It was a signature,” Li cut in, “as Detective Yu pointed out at the outset.”
     
    “Yes, it’s called the death by Eighteen Axes,” Yu observed. “The highest form of punishment inflicted by the Flying Axes.”
     
    “That’s true, and that’s exactly what made me suspicious. Wasn’t such a signature too obvious? So Inspector Rohn’s comment started me thinking of another possibility. The victim in Bund Park could have been killed by somebody in deliberate imitation of the Flying Axes to cast the blame on them. As a result, the Flying Axes had to look into the matter and lose their focus on the search for Wen. Besides, muddying the water diverted the attention of the police, too. Under that hypothesis, who benefited? Someone with an even higher stake in the race to find Wen.”
     
    “I’m beginning to see, Chief Inspector Chen,” Yu said.
     
    “So you deserve the credit, Inspector Rohn. In spite of my suspicions, I was as puzzled as anybody else, unable to put the pieces together into a comprehensible whole. Your comments really helped.”
     
    “Thank you, Inspector Rohn. It’s a marvelous example of the fruitful collaboration between the police forces of our two countries. Almost like the tai chi symbol, yin in perfect match with yang—” Li stopped abruptly, coughing with a hand against his mouth.
     
    She understood. As a high-ranking Party official, Li had to be careful in his speech, even in using a seemingly harmless metaphor, which nevertheless crossed the line, due to the male and female elements suggested by the ancient symbol.
     
    “I also got a call from Old Hunter that evening,” Chen went on. “He told me that Gu had called to ask for information about a missing Fujianese. That was a surprise. Gu had told us about a mysterious visitor from Hong Kong. Why was Gu looking for a Fujianese? So that evening in Bund Park put me on the right track for the first time.”
     
    “The park is a lucky place for you,” she said, “in accordance with the five-element theory. Little wonder, Chief Inspector Chen.”
     
    “Explain, Chief Inspector Chen?” Li asked.
     
    Apparently Li did not know so much about Chen’s life as she did, though the Party Secretary had hand-picked Chen as his successor.
     
    “It’s a joke made by my father, Party Secretary Li,” Chen said. “Actually I had another idea that evening. Inspector Rohn happened to ask me about the two lines on my folding fan. Daifu’s couplet. My thoughts flowed to the mysterious death of Daifu, and then back to the body in the park. It further