In the province of Chihli, at a place named 'Ho-chien-fu, , about 350 li distant from Peking, there lived a man named Chên, who, assisted by his wife, managed to eke out a very good livelihood by tailoring. The wife was young and extremely handsome; her husband on the contrary was elderly and not over well-looking. The wife in fact had long disliked her husband for his age and ill-looks, and to crown all had long contracted, unknown and unsuspected by her husband, a liaison with a young and good-looking fellow named Fêng.

      The intrigue went on for a long time, the wife daily becoming more and more enamoured of her paramour, and as heartily loathing and detesting her husband. This so grew upon her that she determined to free herself from her husband's hated presence and thrall at any risk, and to stick at nothing, even murder, to effect her purpose, and one day suggested a plan to Fêng to murder her husband, so that they might live together without fear as husband and wife.

      Now, although Fêng had no scruple in committing adultery, he could not contemplate the thought of murder without a shudder of horror, and would have nothing to do with so atrocious an act: so he advised her to dismiss such an awful idea from her mind, as, if she perpetrated the crime, it would certainly be found out, and she would be punished with death; even if she was not detected, heaven would infallibly punish her by causing her to feel remorse for the remainder of her life.

      The wife, however, was not so easily to be turned from her purpose, and told her paramour not to concern himself at all about it, as he was so scrupulous, and that she would manage the affair without his aid and depend entirely on herself. That same evening, she made herself particularly agreeable to her husband, getting him a nice little dinner, and supplying him plentifully with drink, which the unfortunate wretch — little dreaming why he was so kindly treated by his generally sulky wife — drank with great gusto till he became quite intoxicated, and in that state dropped off into a sound sleep.

      After waiting some time to assure herself of his sleeping soundly, the wife went quietly into the next room and returned with a hammer and nail, and carefully placing the nail exactly at the crown of the sleeping man's head, she drove it in with several blows of the hammer; her unconscious husband dying without a struggle. No blood came from the wound, and the woman now set about adjusting the murdered man's hair so as to conceal the head of the nail. This was easily effected, and no one, she felt convinced, would ever suspect that her husband had died a violent death.

      The murderess now alarmed some of her neighbours, to whom, with much sobbing and weeping, she described how, after eating a hearty supper, he had suddenly dropped down dead. Whatever the neighbours might have thought they professed to believe her tale, and some of them stayed to condole with her.

      The next day the murderess dressed herself in the deepest mourning and appeared inconsolable for the loss of her husband, weeping bitterly, especially when any of his relations arrived, to whom, when asked, she related the same tale, "that her husband, after eating a hearty supper, had dropped down dead."

      There was one of her husband's kindred, however, who was not to be so easily deceived. He knew some of the antecedents of the wife, and her unfaithfulness to her husband. He put it down that there was not a great many steps in crime between adultery and murder, and he suspected that the deceased did not come by his death fairly, though how he did come by it he was at a loss to fathom.

      He talked the matter over with some others of his kindred, and impressed them also with the idea that the poor tailor had been quietly put out of the way. After some discussion some of them reported the affair to a magistrate and desired him to order an inquest on the body. The magistrate readily granted their request, and at once ordered an examination to be made.

      The coroner^* inspected the corpse, but could perceive no wound or other symptom of having come to his end unfairly, and made his report to the magistrate accordingly. The deceased's kindred, however, were not satisfied with this, but entreated the magistrate to allow another and closer inspection. He again acceded to their wishes, and the coroner again closely examined the corpse but with no better result.

* 仵作, Wu-tao.

      On returning home the coroner casually mentioned the matter to his wife, expressing his annoyance at the trouble he had had, all ending in no satisfactory result. His wife asked her husband many questions concerning the case, and on hearing the full particulars, expressed her opinion that something was wrong. She now made enquiries as to his mode of examining and could not avoid giving a pish of contempt when he described the cursory manner in which he had examined the corpse.

      She asked him how many hearts a person had? To which he replied, "Six, of course." "There you are wrong," replied she, "for there are seven, the palms of the hands, the soles of the feet, the chest and the back, are the six, but beyond these there is the brain heart, which makes the seventh." She told her husband to go the next day and, parting the hair of the corpse, carefully inspect the crown of his head, and if he found a nail or a needle, he would soon see the cause of his death.

      The next day the coroner followed out the advice he had received from his wife, and to his astonishment found that she had been correct in her surmises, for he discovered a nail driven into the crown of the head. This discovery caused a great sensation; the murderess was immediately seized and taken off to prison, and had not a word to say to exculpate herself from so atrocious a crime.

      While investigating the case, the worthy magistrate suddenly asked the coroner how he had discovered the nail. The coroner replied that he was indebted to his wife for the discovery, she having suggested the idea of looking at the crown of the head on the previous evening when he had related the circumstance to her.

      The magistrate cogitated for a short time and then asked the coroner if his wife had ever been married before. The coroner thought this question somewhat out of place, but replied that she had been previously married, and was a widow when he married her. The magistrate bade him bring his wife with him on the morrow, as he wished to put a few questions to her. The coroner, failing to perceive the magistrate's motive for so strange a proceeding, promised compliance, and went home, and acquainted his wife of the magistrate's order, but without observing the disquietude his information had given her.

      On the next day he took his wife to the yamên, and the magistrate, after a little commonplace conversation, remarked that the recent examination had been a great source of trouble to her husband and himself, and enquired how she who had never studied, and who being a woman could not be supposed to be acquainted with the details of an inquest, could have suggested where to find the nail? He further added that she had evidently had some experience in that mode of death and had perhaps practised it herself on her first husband.

      The woman changed colour at these words and became very flurried and excited in manner; begging her husband to take her out of the place. The magistrate felt his previous suspicions fully confirmed by her present behaviour, and angrily exclaimed, "Abominable wretch! Your former deeds have come to light; tell me the whole truth or I'll torture it out of you!"

      The coroner's wife, finding that she had unwillingly betrayed herself, and dreading the torture, flung herself on her knees before the magistrate, confessed that she had murdered her first husband in that manner, but pleaded in extenuation his ill-treatment of her. The magistrate now demanded where his remains were buried. The woman gave directions where the grave was to be found; a party was sent to the place, the grave was opened and the corpse taken from the coffin, but having been buried upwards of three years nothing but bones remained; a large nail, however, was found deeply embedded in the skull, proving beyond doubt that he had been murdered.

      The discovery of this second murder caused more sensation even than the first; it seemed as if heaven in its inscrutable power and justice had specially designed that each murderess should be the direct or indirect cause of finding out each other's crimes, for if the first woman had not committed a murder, the second could never have pointed out the means of detecting it, and if she had not done so her own guilt would probably have never come to light.

      The two murderesses were at once sentenced to the death they merited. The coroner tried hard to have his wife's sentence remitted, begging the magistrate to have mercy, to make allowance for the ill-treatment she had received and the length of time that had elapsed since the deed; her repentance and promises of amendment; but the magistrate was inexorable, and declared he would shew no favour — "that since she had done so to her former husband she might also some day in a fit of passion or pique do the same to him. Both should be executed; it would be a caution to other wives, and show them that even though hid for years murder will out."

G. C. STENT.      

(THE END)