The Phantom of the Temple

XXI

It was late in the night by the time Judge Dee had finished the most urgent business resulting from the dis­covery in the deserted temple. The Treasurer's gold had been carefully weighed and its value assessed, in the presence of four witnesses: four of the notables of Lan-fang, hastily summoned to the tribunal. Then the fifty gold bars had been made into five sealed parcels and placed in the large safe in the chancery. Six soldiers would stand guard there all through the night. In the morning Ma Joong would take the gold to the prefecture, accom­panied by a unit of mounted military police. The prefect would see to it that the gold was forwarded to the Imperial capital.

When the judge had signed and sealed his report to the prefect, he told Sergeant Hoong to put it in a large official envelope. He went to the wash-stand in the corner, and rubbed his face and neck with a towel dipped in the cold water.

'We have a complete case,' he told the sergeant. 'I don't expect Yang will bring forward any new facts when I hear him in court tomorrow morning. I think he'll limit himself to a formal confession of having instigated the murder of Lee Ko, of having himself murdered Seng-san, and having subsequently severed their heads in order to be able to switch the bodies and hide the tattooed clue to the temple and the gold. He'll also confess to the murder of the constable. He fully realizes he's done for, and that nothing will save him from being executed in the severest way known to the law. When he was being locked up in his cell, he seemed utterly calm and resigned to his fate.'

The judge paused. He took a comb from his sleeve and began to comb his beard and whiskers. Giving the sergeant a grave look, he resumed, 'Yet you'll realize, Hoong, that there are still a few loose ends to be tied up. I don't think I shall have to take any further legal action, but it is my duty to make sure. Ma Joong is still busy up in the deserted temple, supervising the cleaning of the crypt. If you aren't too tired, Hoong, I would like you to go with me when I make a call down town.'

'I would like very much to accompany you, sir,' the sergeant said quietly. 'For I don't think it'll be a very pleasant call.'

Judge Dee smiled wanly. How well his old friend always gauged his mood!

'Thank you, Hoong. We'll go as we are, and leave the tribunal by the back door. We'll hire a sedan chair in the street.'

The bearers put the chair down in front of the Temple of the War God. While the judge was paying them off, Sergeant Hoong made inquiries from two loafers who were sitting on the broad stone steps of the temple gate. He asked the way to a cheap brothel, housed in an old military barrack. They told him, with a contemptuous sneer.

Together they walked on to the poor quarter. A street urchin took them to the barrack on the corner of the crooked lane. Now all the windows of the ramshackle wooden building were open. Heavily made-up women were leaning out. Fanning themselves with fans of gaudy silk, they shouted inviting remarks at the passers-by. But the men in the street didn't heed them. Standing about in small groups, they were discussing the happenings in the deserted temple. The coolies and beggars who had accompanied Judge Dee's cortege had rushed back to the city to tell the news.

Judge Dee recognized the barred arch window Ma Joong had described, and the low, dark door-opening farther on. It reminded the judge of the entrance to a tomb.

He descended the steep steps, followed by Sergeant Hoong.

After the noise in the street outside, the stillness that reigned in the cellar was uncanny. The old man in black was sitting huddled up in his window, his head resting on the bamboo stick across his knees. In the rear the candle shone on the large head of the King, cradled on his folded arms. He seemed to be sleeping.

When Judge Dee stepped up to the table, there came a fluttering sound from above, and a thin voice screamed:

'A beard, Monk! A beard! Wake up!'

The stick swept down in a threatening curve.

'Be quiet, you!' Judge Dee barked at the bald man. 'I am the magistrate.'

The man in the window shrank. He pressed his frail body against the iron bars, in a dead fright.

The King had raised his head from the table. He pointed at the stool in front.

'Sit down, judge. You must be tired, for I am told you had a heavy night.'

Judge Dee took the bamboo stool. Sergeant Hoong came to stand behind him. Silently the judge took in the giant's broad, grooved face, the still eyes, the high fore­head. Then his eyes strayed to the table-top, covered with intricate carved designs. He heaved a sigh and rubbed his stiff knees. He had been on his feet the entire night.

'Well, what can I do for you?' the other asked in his deep voice.

'You can help me with some expert advice, Monk,' the judge replied quietly. 'You aren't called the Monk for nothing, are you? You were a real monk, once. Of the Temple of the Purple Clouds. Long ago, when the esoteric ritual was still being practised there. And, after the authorities had the temple vacated, you built the Her­mitage. You and one priestess. Therefore I consider you an expert on temples, Monk.'

The giant nodded slowly.

'Yes, judge, those who call you an exceedingly clever man are right. You need no advice, judge, none what­soever. And certainly not from me.'

'I do. On a minor detail, you see. Aren't the airshafts of a crypt under a temple always provided with gratings? To prevent rats from entering them? I don't mention rabbits, of course.'

The King sat very still. His immensely broad shoulders sagged still further. Looking up at the judge from under the ragged fringe of his long grey eyebrows, he muttered, 'So you know. Yes, you are clever, judge. I have said it before, and I'll say it again!'

'You forgot about the gratings, Monk, but you also made a more serious mistake. The wording of the message you put in the box was all wrong. Why should a girl who is dying from hunger and thirst add the year to the date of her message? I saw at once that it was utterly wrong. And then, after I had understood that the jade disc on the box was intended to hint at the place where she allegedly was kept captive, I knew for certain that the entire message was a hoax. Granted that she might have found such an ebony box among the litter in the crypt, and granted that she had a tinderbox to light one of the old candles there, nobody in his senses would ever believe that a frantic girl who feels that her life is ebbing away would think up such an elaborate puzzle.' Point­ing at the table-top, he resumed: 'Such a puzzle would rather emanate from the warped brain of some­one who sits brooding over magic figures, for days on end.'

'Why should I fake messages from dying girls, judge?' 'In order to blackmail her murderer. It was one of your beggars, Monk, who took the ebony box to Lee Ko, with instructions to say that it had been found near a rabbit hole, on the slope behind the temple. The rabbit hole would suggest to the murderer an airshaft, and warn him that the sender of the box knew everything. That his foul deed had been discovered because Miss Jade had not been killed by her fall into the crypt, and had written that message in her last moments with her own blood, then got it outside by throwing it down the air-shaft. To me, Monk, it suggested another, very important fact. Namely, that the sender of the box knew that the murderer, after he had pushed Miss Jade into the crypt, had closed the trap door at once, without verifying whether the fall had killed her. Answer me, Monk. How did you know that?'

The other did not reply at once. He seemed lost in thought. When he spoke up at last, his voice was utterly weary.

'Tala is dead, and I am a dying man. Why shouldn't I tell you, judge? Tala was in the temple, that night of the tenth. She was bound by mystic ties to the central spot in the hall, the holy lotus flower, the eternal symbol of the source of life, hallowed by continuous sacrifice. Every night when there was a full moon she went there, to burn the sacred wood. Tala saw that young woman enter the hall, and followed her. Lee Ko was standing by the open crypt, and Tala saw him push the girl inside and close the trap door. Tala told me. She didn't ask Lee why he had thrown her into the crypt. Tala never asked questions.'

'She did yesterday,' the judge said. 'When my lieutenant went to see her, she asked her god about the girl, after she had learned from my lieutenant that her name had been Jade. The answer was that Jade had died on the tenth, and of a broken neck. That was true, for I examined her dead body tonight. That god of Tala's also told her that she herself would die today. And that came true also.'

The Monk slowly shook his large head.

'Tala was strong, judge. Stronger than I, and Lee, and Yang. But her god was stronger than her. She was wedded to him by the strange rites that transcend the boundary between life and death. You asked about my faked message, judge. I sent it to Lee to frighten him. Frighten him into giving me that gold. So that I could take Tala away from him. Next to her god, she belonged to me.

'The next day I sent Cross-eye, my old henchman in the window up there, to Lee's place. To summon him to my cellar. But Lee apparently hadn't understood, for he never came.'

'You shouldn't have covered the box with dried mud, Monk. Yang came to the door and bought the box, but neither he nor Lee ever gave it a second look. Lee sold it, together with some other rubbish, to a curio-dealer. And I bought it from him. At first ...' The other raised his large hand. 'Enough of that accursed box, judge. Let's talk about Lee. Tala threw him away, as one throws away a piece of sugar cane, chewed dry. And she took Yang. The other day she came to see me. Told me you were after her, but that it didn't matter. Yang knew now where the gold was, and he had killed Lee, and Lee's helper, Seng-san. She would flee with Yang over the border. It was time, for her people were turning against her, and her god had told her she was about to die, join him for ever. But she didn't believe him, this time. She laughed when she said that. And now she's dead. The gods have the last laugh, judge. Always.' He stared at nothing, his eyes vacant. Suddenly he darted a quick glance at the judge and asked: 'What did you do with her dead body?'

'I had it cremated, and the ashes scattered. That was her last wish.'

The other lifted his big hands in a hopeless gesture. 'That means I have lost her. For ever. The wind will blow her ashes over the plain, and they'll change into a white witch, rushing through the air, white and naked on her black steed, by the side of the red god, her master. They'll ride the gale together when it comes raging over the desert, and when the Tartars hear her scream they'll cower in their tents and say their prayers. You should've buried her ashes, Judge.'

'The rule is,' Judge Dee said dryly, 'that the ashes of a person who leaves no known relatives are scattered.'

'You don't believe the things I told you, do you, judge?'

'I neither believe nor disbelieve them. You asked a futile question, Monk. Tell me, where did the gold in the temple come from?'

'I don't know. Tala knew, but she never told me. Someone must have hidden it there, last year. In my time it wasn't there.'

'I see. Did Lee Ko meet Tala in the temple?'

For a long time the Monk remained silent. His large head sunk, he aimlessly traced with his finger the incised designs on the table-top. At last he spoke: 'Lee was a learned man and a great artist. But he wanted to know too much, far too much. There are things that even a wise man like you had better not know, judge. Therefore I shall tell you only this. Twenty years ago, when I was forty and Tala twenty, we were the high priest and high priestess of the Temple of the Purple Clouds. When, five years later, the authorities closed down the temple, we feigned to forswear the creed, and continued to practise it in secret, in the Hermitage. For we were adepts, versed in all the mysteries. We knew much about what people for want of better words call the beginning and the end of the spark of life. We knew too much. But we didn't know, judge, that man is bound to travel in circles, always. Just when you think you have arrived at the end, about to reach the ultimate mystery, you suddenly find yourself right back where you started. Tala, the high priestess, who knew all the secrets, fell in love with Lee Ko. And she left me.'

Suddenly he laughed. It echoed hollowly in the empty cellar. The old man in the window began to hop to and fro. The Monk checked himself. He said sombrely: 'You didn't laugh, judge. You are right. For the biggest laugh is yet to come. You'd think that I, the high priest of esoteric love, would just shrug at her folly, and go my way, wouldn't you? No. When she was moving from the Hermitage to the city, I begged her not to leave me, judge! Begged her!' With a superhuman effort he raised himself on his muscular arms and shouted: 'Laugh now, judge! Laugh at me, I tell you!'

Judge Dee met his haunted eyes levelly. 'I don't know how Tala felt about you, Monk. I do know, however, that she still loved her daughter. Last night she was luring my lieutenant to the spot behind the temple where Yang would kill him, letting the top of the crumbling wall crush him. But at the very last moment, she sud­denly saw your daughter coming up behind him, and she raised her arms in alarm. That frantic gesture frightened my lieutenant. He halted in his steps, and that saved his life.'

The Monk glanced away.

'I had hoped,' he said in a low voice, 'that Tala would discard Yang in the same manner as she had discarded Lee. Abandon Yang, as soon as he had got the gold. I also hoped I would then be able to wean her away from her terrible god. For although the spark of life has died in me, I am still familiar with the unnamed rites, and I still know the unutterable spells.' He heaved a deep sigh that swelled his broad chest. 'Yes, I had hoped to free her from her bonds, and take her and our daughter over the border, to our own people. To ride over the wide plain again! To ride on and on, for days on end, in the clean, crisp air of the desert!'

'I remember,' Judge Dee said slowly, 'that I told Yang that the horse that breaks loose from the team will roam over the plain, free and untrammelled. But the day will come when it grows lonely and tired. Then it finds itself all alone and lost — the track effaced by the wind, and the chariot vanished beyond the horizon.'

The Monk, lost in thought, did not seem to have heard him. When he spoke again, his voice was very soft.

'Without her god, Tala would have shrunk to an empty shell, just like me. For although the gods let us spend freely all we want to spend, they never give any of it back. But even two empty, old people who love each other can at least wait for death together. Now that I have lost Tala, I shall have to wait alone. It won't be too long.' His voice had become so low as to be hardly audible. He raised his head, and whispered hoarsely, 'It's getting late, judge. You'd better go. Unless you think you should take action against me, or ... or take my testimony...'

The judge rose. He shook his head and said, 'My case is complete, Monk. There is nothing to be done, nothing to be said. Not any more. Goodbye.'

He went to the staircase, followed by Sergeant Hoong. The small old man squatting in the window had drawn the tattered black robe close to him, his shoulders hunched, his bald head drawn in. A ruffled crow gone to roost.