The Phantom of the Temple

XVIII

The violent rainstorm that had broken loose over Lan-fang a few hours before dawn had cleared the air. When Judge Dee, accompanied by his Third Lady, went into the garden for an early-morning stroll, a cool, thin mist was hovering over the pond where a profusion of pink and white lotus flowers had suddenly opened. The judge decided to have their morning-rice served in the water pavilion.

They ate in silence, enjoying the fresh air and the charming scenery. Afterwards they stood at the red-lacquered balustrade, and fed the left-over rice grains to the goldfish. Watching their swift moves as they came dashing out from under the large leaves, the Third Lady said:

'You came home very late last night, and you slept badly, tossing about all the time. Was there bad news?'

'Yes. We lost a constable who leaves a wife and two children, and another was severely wounded. But I believe the end of this distressing case is in sight. Only one last piece is still missing, and that I hope to discover today.'

She went with him as far as the garden gate.

He found Ma Joong and Sergeant Hoong waiting for him in his private office. After they had wished the judge a good morning, Ma Joong said:

'I have just come back from the Hermitage, sir. Fang is doing well. The Abbess thinks that, after ten days or so, he'll be perfectly all right. She offered to let him stay there till he has completely recovered.'

'That's good news!' the judge said, sitting down behind his desk. 'Yes, Fang had better remain in the Hermitage, for the time being. Well, last night I went over again the various aspects of Our case. I decided that today we should first make a second search of the deserted temple, then have the King of the Beggars and his daughter in, for a thorough interrogation.'

Ma Joong shifted in his chair. He cleared his throat and said, 'To tell you the truth, sir, I got the impression that Spring Cloud sometimes acts as scout for her father's thieving beggars.'

'That is what I thought when I saw the floor-plan she made of the deserted temple,' Judge Dee remarked dryly. He opened his drawer and put the sheet of paper on his desk. Smoothing it out, he added: 'It's very useful for our orientation, I must say.'

Ma Joong got up. Bending over the desk, he said eagerly, 'On this plan I can trace for you exactly how I tried to catch the murderer last night, sir. Look, the gap through which I entered the compound is here. I slipped inside by this door and ...'

He went on to describe the contest in the dark hall, step by step. Judge Dee listened absent-mindedly. He was tugging at his whiskers, staring fixedly at the plan.

Then my feet got caught in that blasted rope-ladder,' Ma Joong went on. 'Here it was, right in this spot. So—'

Suddenly Judge Dee hit his fist on the table, so hard that it made the cups ring.

'Holy Heaven!' he exclaimed. 'So that is what it was! Why didn't I see that at once? During my visit to the temple I got a good idea of its layout, yet I failed to notice the close resemblance!'

'What ...' Sergeant Hoong began.

The judge pushed his chair back and got up.

'Wait! I'll have to work this out logically. Thanks to that girl's skill, I have found the missing piece, my friends! Let me now see where exactly it must be fitted in... . Yes, at last a definite pattern is arising from all this confused data. But ...'

He shook his head impatiently and began to pace the floor, his hands behind his back.

Ma Joong smiled contentedly. During his visit to the Hermitage he had found an opportunity for talking with Spring Cloud alone for a few minutes, and he thought she didn't seem averse to becoming his regular girlfriend. That she had apparently provided the judge with an important clue might make it easier to straighten out her former petty offences. There was a pleased look on Sergeant Hoong's face too, for he knew the signs from long experience: the case had arrived at a turning point.

Quick steps of heavy boots resounded in the corridor. The headman came bursting in.

'The warden of the north-west quarter came rushing here, sir!' he panted. 'There's big trouble there. The Tartars are stoning the sorceress to death. When the warden's men went to stop them, the scoundrels chased them away, pelting them with sticks and broken bricks... .'

Ma Joong gave the judge a questioning look. When Judge Dee nodded, he jumped up, pulled the heavy whip out of the headman's belt and ran out.

In the stable yard two grooms were rubbing down a horse. Ma Joong sprang on its bare back and rode through the gate.

In the street he drove his horse to a gallop. The crowd made way hastily when they heard the clatter of the hoofs and saw the horseman approaching. The streets of the north-west quarter had an ominous deserted look. Over the low roofs ahead Ma Joong saw smoke curling up and he heard a confused shouting.

In the street where Tala lived a motley crowd barred his way. A few dozen Tartars were jostling one another, shouting and cursing. Three Indians were throwing lighted torches on the roof of the house, acclaimed by the slat­ternly women standing in the doorways of the houses opposite. Ma Joong let his heavy whip descend on the bare, sweat-covered backs of the nearest Tartars, then forced his horse right among them. Shouting angrily, the crowd turned round towards him. When they recognized the uniform of an officer of the tribunal, they fell back in sullen silence.

Ma Joong jumped from his horse and ran over to the woman lying at the base of the mud wall beside the door. Tala's long cloak was torn into ribbons, soaked with blood, and there were ugly gashes on the white arms with which she was protecting her face. Broken sticks and stones were lying all around her. As Ma Joong knelt by her side, a brick swished past his head and hit the wall with a thud. He turned round and saw a half-naked Tar­tar stooping to pick up another brick. Quick as lightning, Ma Joong sprang up and was on him. He grabbed the man's long scalp with his left and let the butt end of his whip descend on the nape of his neck. Throwing the limp body down, he shouted at the crowd:

'Get water buckets and put out the fire. Do you want all your houses to burn down?'

Tala had let her arms drop away from her face. A gaping wound ran across her brow, and the left side of her face was crushed to a pulp.

'I'll put you on my horse and take you to ...' Ma Joong began.

She fixed him with her one, bloodshot eye.

'Burn ... my body,' she whispered.

Suddenly there was a crash, followed by screams of terror from the crowd. The roof of Tala's house had caved in. The large head of the fierce deity became visible. The statue's red face seemed even more horribly distorted by the flames that blazed up all around it.

Ma Joong gathered the woman in his arms and stepped away from the wall, for pieces of burning wood were coming down from the roof. He saw her bleeding lips move.

'Scatter my ashes ...' she said, nearly inaudibly. He felt her shiver, then her body grew limp in his arms.

He laid the dead woman on his horse. The Tartar he had felled had been carried away by his friends. The others were kneeling, facing Tala's house, in abject fear. The burning head of the statue looked down on them with a sardonic smile.

'Get up and put the fire out, you fools!' Ma Joong shouted at them.

Then he swung onto his horse and rode back to the tribunal with the dead woman.

Judge Dee received the news calmly. Giving Ma Joong and the sergeant a grave look, he said, 'Tala was a fey woman from the time she embraced the creed that leads to perdition. My orders are not to interfere with the religious squabbles of the foreign barbarians, so we shall take no action against the people living in that quarter. We shall have her body cremated at once, as she desired.'

He was interrupted by the booming sound of the large gong at the gate of the tribunal. Coming at that moment, it reminded the judge of the gong in a Buddhist temple, sounded at the end of the service for the dead, to usher the soul of the deceased to the other world.

'The session is about to begin,' he said. 'You had better go and have a rest, Ma Joong; for in the afternoon we shall search the temple. You'll assist me in court, Sergeant. I am afraid it'll again be a long session, for the case Kao vs Lo is coming up for re-examination; now the Lo side want to bring up their new evidence. At the end of the session I shall order the release of the vagabond Ah-liu. Get my official robe out, Hoong.'

After Ma Joong had issued the necessary orders for the burning of Tala's corpse, he went straight to the guard­house. He stripped naked, squatted on a corner of the stone floor, and had two guards pour buckets of cold water over him. Then he went up to his small attic, naked as he was, and threw himself down on his military plank bed. He was very tired, for, having gone to the Hermi­tage before dawn, he had had but a few hours' sleep after the strenuous night in the temple. However, as soon as he had closed his eyes, the horribly mutilated face of Tala rose before his mind's eye; then he saw her again as she had stood before him, naked over the heap of skulls... . Muttering curses he tossed about till at last he fell into a dreamless sleep.

He woke up with a splitting headache. A glance out of the window proved that it was already late in the afternoon. He quickly dressed and went downstairs. While he was gulping down a bowl of cold noodles in the guardroom a constable told him that the senior scribe had come back from Tong-kang. He had just passed the gate, on his way to Judge Dee's office.

Ma Joong set the bowl down and hurried to the chancery.

Judge Dee was sitting behind his desk, the sergeant was standing by his side. The old scribe sat on the chair opposite, as always looking very neat and prim. Sitting down, Ma Joong cast an astonished look at the many small slips of notepaper arranged in neat rows on the desk, each covered with Judge Dee's familiar bold hand­writing. On top of the array lay seven large cards, generally used for marking a spot in a dossier. He tried to apologize for his lateness, but Judge Dee raised his hand. 'You are just in time to hear the report on Tong-kang, Ma Joong.' And, to the old scribe, he said, 'Continue!’

'The commander of the military convoy kindly let me join them, sir, and so I travelled the greater part of the way back in comfort, and fast too! The last stretch I did on horseback, with a group of tea merchants. We rode on all night. We were lucky, for when the rain storm broke we found shelter in the hut of a woodgatherer on the second mountain ridge. Then—'

'You had quite a journey,' the judge interrupted. 'Just give me the gist of what you learned in Tong-kang. You can draw up a detailed report later, after you have taken a rest.'

'Thank you, sir. I want to begin by stating that the chancery personnel of the tribunal in Tong-kang treated me most courteously. They assigned to me most comfort­able quarters in the hostel for official travellers.'

'I shall write my colleague a letter of thanks. What did you learn about the Treasurer's stay there?'

'My colleagues introduced me to the clerk who had been ordered to look after the Treasurer's needs, sir. He told me his had been an easy task, for the Treasurer had been tired by the long journey, and declined the magis­trate's invitation to dinner. When the clerk was serving the evening rice in the Treasurer's room, the latter told him to have a leather worker called, for one of his travel­ling boxes was developing a crack. After the leather worker had gone, the Treasurer retired. He received no other visitors, and left the next morning at dawn.'

The old scribe made a bow to the sergeant, who had pushed a cup of tea towards him. After he had taken a few sips, he resumed, 'The headman of the tribunal found that leather worker for me. His name is Liu, an elderly, rather garrulous person. He began his career as a gold­smith, but then his eyes went bad and he shifted to the tooling of leather. He remembered his visit to the Treasurer quite well, because a few days later he heard that the gold had been stolen and—'

'Yes, yes, naturally. What happened during that visit?'

'Well, sir, the Treasurer took Liu to his bedroom and showed him the box that was cracking. Liu examined it, and told the Treasurer that the leather was of such good quality that he needn't fear that it would burst. The Treasurer was visibly relieved and gave Liu a good tip. Encouraged by the kind words of this high official, Liu praised the workmanship of a gold ornament the Treasurer was wearing, adding that he was really a gold­smith. The Treasurer said that in that case he had more work for him. He took an intricate key from his sleeve, and opened the padlock of the cracked box. He had stood himself with his back to Liu, but Liu saw in the cap-mirror on the table that the box was filled to the rim with heavy gold bars. The Treasurer closed the box and turned round to Liu with one large bar in his hand. He told Liu that it was unusually long; he had forced it into the box on top of his clothes, he said, and that was probably the reason why the box had got cracked. He asked Liu whether he could saw it for him into two pieces, without losing any of the gold-dust. Liu had the right kind of saw in his tool box, and he left directly after having done the job. That's all, sir!'

Judge Dee gave his two lieutenants a significant look. He asked the scribe, 'Whom did Liu tell about his discovery?'

'Oh, dozens of people, Your Honour! It so happened that the Guild of the Gold- and Silversmiths had its regu­lar meeting that very night, and Liu told the gathering his story. It isn't often the common people hear about such a large gold transport, and they had a good time developing all kinds of theories about the reason why an Imperial Treasurer would be taking such a large sum over the border.'

'You did excellent work! After you have refreshed yourself, you had better have a look at the records of the court sessions of yesterday and today. The case Kao vs Lo came up again, you know.'

'I certainly want to see those records, sir!' the old gentleman said eagerly. 'Yes, I had suspected that both sides kept a few tricks up their sleeve, especially the Kao side! There's that obscure point about the second mar­riage of the third cousin, and—'

'Here are the two dossiers,' Judge Dee told him hastily. 'I shall hear the case again tomorrow.'

The old scribe left, fondly clasping the two dossiers in his arms.

'The Treasurer made a fatal mistake,' the sergeant remarked. 'He should have told Liu to leave the room for a few moments, while he took the gold bar from the box.'

'Of course,' Ma Joong put in. 'It doesn't get us much further, though. How can we find out which one of those guildsmen took the news to Lan-fang? It may have been a friend, or—'

'That's immaterial, Ma Joong,' Judge Dee interrupted. 'The main point is that now we know for certain how the secret leaked out, that the news was brought here before the Treasurer arrived, and that it became known in the milieu of goldsmiths and metal-workers. That's all I need.'

'Are we going to the deserted temple now, sir?' Ma Joong asked. 'There are six guards up there, but I don't like the idea of all that gold lying around!’

'No, we aren't going there just yet. As I was explaining to the sergeant before our scribe came in, Ma Joong, I have now completed a theory about our case. It neces­sitated a careful re-examination of all the evidence which has come to light so far, and especially a painstaking check on dates. Dates play a vital part in all this, Ma Joong. Hence all those slips of paper you see here before me. The results I summed up on those seven cards which I put on top. On each card I wrote down a name, to­gether with some significant facts. These slips don't matter any more.'

The judge pulled the drawer out and swept the slips inside with the tip of his sleeve.

'We shall now examine together these seven cards. I turned them face down when the arrival of our scribe was announced, for the old gentleman has good eyes! And each card bears the name of a suspected murderer.'