Chapters 9-12 Summary

In Chapter nine, Chen's poem is published, providing him with a welcome break from the frustrations of the dead-end investigation. Pushed into following fruitless leads for political reasons and making no progress with the case, Chen is losing hope. During a sleepless night, however, he realizes that caviar is not easy to come by and only a few people in Shanghai could have eaten it at a very limited number of establishments.

Chapter ten focuses on Yu's frustration with the case. His feelings are that they are spending too much time on the murder to the detriment of other cases. With their leads going nowhere, Yu feels that it is time to put the murder aside until new information emerges. Commissar Zhang does not agree. At a meeting, Chen brings up the caviar. Chen has investigated it and discovered that the...