At four thirty that day, Chief Inspector Chen Cao, head of the special case squad, Homicide Division, Shanghai Police Bureau, did not know anything about the case.

It was a sweltering Friday afternoon. Occasionally cicadas could be heard chirping on a poplar tree outside the window of his new one-bedroom apartment on the second floor of a gray-brick building. From the window, he could look out to the busy traffic moving slowly along Huaihai Road, but at a desirable, noiseless distance. The building was conveniently located near the center of the Luwan district. It took him less than twenty minutes to walk to Nanjing Road in the north, or to the City God’s Temple in the south, and on a clear summer night, he could smell the tangy breeze from the Huangpu River.

Chief Inspector Chen should have stayed at the office, but he found himself alone in his apartment, working on a problem. Reclining on a leather-covered couch, his outstretched legs propped on a gray swivel chair, he was studying a list on the first page of a small notepad. He scribbled a few words and then crossed them out, looking out the window. In the afternoon sunlight, he saw a towering crane silhouetted against another new building about a block away. The apartment complex had not been completed yet.

The problem confronting the chief inspector, who had just been assigned an apartment, was his housewarming party. Obtaining a new apartment in Shanghai was an occasion calling for a celebration. He himself was greatly pleased. On a moment’s impulse, he had sent out invitations. Now he was considering how he would entertain his guests. It would not do to just have a homely meal, as Lu, nicknamed Overseas Chinese, had warned him. For such an occasion, there had to be a special banquet.