The Haunted Monastery

XI

He quickly looked up and down the corridor. It seemed unlikely that his attacker would dare to lie in wait for a second attempt, but one never knew. However, all was silent as the grave. He walked down the corridor, deep in thought.

That rascal Mo Mo-te was tall and strong enough to have dealt him the blow. And as to motive, if Mo was a maniac who chose women as his victims, and if he had been the actor who had come barging into the reception room during his conversation with the abbot, Mo might well have feared that he, the judge, was about to investigate irregularities with girls in the monastery, and thus trace Mo's doings with that one-armed woman. If the scene he had witnessed hadn't been a hallucination! At any rate he ought to ask the abbot which actor had intruded on them during their talk in the reception room.

What Miss Ting had told him about Miss Ou-yang worried him also. The girl had evidently made herself up to resemble Miss Pao in order to warn her or her mother. But against what or whom? Probably Miss Ou-yang had lied to Kuan. It was a preposterous idea that a wealthy girl from the capital would keep an enormous bear as a pet. It was far more likely that Miss Ou-yang was a member of some travelling show, who had joined Kuan's troupe on the orders of a third person, as yet unknown. It was all very confusing.

Shaking his head disconsolately, Judge Dee rounded the corner. He halted in front of the fourth door on the left. He knocked, but as he had expected, there was no answer. He pushed against the door and found that it was not locked. This was the opportunity to search Mo Mo-te's personal effects.

When he had opened the door, he vaguely saw a table with a candle in front of a large cupboard, the door of which was open. He stepped inside and closed the door behind him, then walked over to the table feeling in his sleeve for his tinderbox. Suddenly he heard a deep growl behind him.

He swung round. By the door, close to the floor, a pair of green eyes was staring fixedly at him. They slowly rose, then the judge felt the floor boards tremble under a heavy tread.

His way to the door was cut off. He quickly felt his way around the table and frantically groped in the dark for the door of the cupboard he had seen. He found it and stepped inside, pulling the door shut behind him. He heard the growling very near, on the other side. There was a sound of scratching nails. Then the growling grew louder.

Judge Dee cursed his absentmindedness. He now remembered, too late, that Miss Ting had spoken about the fourth door on the right. He had entered by mistake the room opposite, evidently that of Miss Ou-yang. She was out, but that awful brute was there.

The scratching stopped. The planks under Judge Dee's feet shook as the bear lay down in front of the cupboard.

This was a most unpleasant situation. Presumably Miss Ou-yang would arrive before long, and he could shout at her through the door. But in the meantime he was at the mercy of that fearsome creature. He hadn't the slightest idea of the behaviour of bears. Would the animal presently try to smash the door? It seemed solid enough, but if the bear threw its enormous weight against it, he could doubtless easily smash the entire cupboard to pieces.

The cupboard was empty, but there wasn't much space. He had to stand half-bent, the ceiling boards pressed down painfully on the lump on the back of his head. And the air was getting very close. Soon it would become suffocating. He carefully opened the door at a narrow crack.

A waft of fresh air came inside, but at the same moment there was a commotion outside that made the cupboard shake. The bear growled ominously, and again began to scratch at the door. The judge closed it quickly, and kept both hands on the handle.

A cold fear gripped his heart. This was a situation he was utterly unable to cope with. Soon the stale air began to hurt his lungs; sweat broke out all over his body. If he put the door ajar again, would the bear push his paw inside and force it open?

Just when he had decided that he would have to risk it again, he heard someone enter the room. A voice said gruffly: "Are you after the mice again? Back to your corner, quick!"

The floor shook again under the bear's heavy tread The judge opened the door very slightly and filled his lungs with fresh air. He saw Miss Ou-yang lighting the candle. Then she went up to the dressing table, took a handful of sugared fruit from a drawer and threw it to the bear."

"Well caught!" she said. The bear growled.

Judge Dee heaved a deep sigh of relief. He didn't relish the task ahead of announcing his presence from his undignified hide-out, but anything was better than being mauled by that fearful brute! He opened his mouth to speak, then saw to his embarrassment that Miss Ou-yang had untied her sash and was now impatiently tugging at her robe. He would have to wait until she had changed into her night-dress. He was about to pull the door shut again when he suddenly halted. He looked wide-eyed at the girl's bare arms. They were thin, but there was a rippling movement of well-developed muscles, and the upper arms were covered with black hair. There was a long red scar on the left arm. The robe fell down and revealed the bare torso of a young man.

The judge opened the door wider. He cleared his throat and said: "I am the magistrate. I entered here by mistake." As the bear lumbered forward with an angry growl he quickly added: "Keep that beast away from me!"

The young man at the dressing table looked dumbfounded at the figure in the cupboard. Then he barked an order at the bear. It went back to its corner by the window, still growling. Its neck hairs stood on end.

"You can come out!" the youngster said curtly. "He won't touch you."

Judge Dee stepped into the room and went to the chair by the table, eyeing the bear suspiciously.

"Sit down!" the other exclaimed impatiently. "I tell you it's safe!"

"Even so, I want you to put him on the chain!" the judge said curtly. The youngster took off his wig, then went up to the bear and attached a heavy chain to its iron collar. The other end was fastened to a hook in the window sill. Judge Dee thought that the snap of the lock was one of the nicest sounds he had ever heard. He sat down on the bamboo chair.

The young man put on a loose jacket. He sat down, too, and said in a surly voice: "Well, now you have found me out, what are you going to do about it?"

"You are Miss Pao's brother, aren't you?" the judge asked.

"I am. But fortunately that woman Pao isn't my mother! How did you know?"

"When watching your act," Judge Dee replied, "it struck me that White Rose was very frightened when Mo Mo-te threatened you with his sword, while your scene with the bear left her completely unperturbed. That indicated that she knew everything about you and your bear. And when just now I saw your face, I noticed that there's a basic resemblance." The young man nodded.

"Anyway," he said, "I have committed only the minor offence of posing as a member of the other sex. And in a good cause."

"You'd better tell me all about it. Who are you?"

"I am Kang I-te, eldest son of Kang Woo, the well-known rice merchant in the capital. White Rose is my only sister. Half a year ago she fell in love with a young student, but my father disapproved of the match and refused to give his consent to the marriage. Soon after that the young fellow fell off his horse when returning drunk from a party. He broke his back and died on the spot. My sister was broken-hearted. She maintained that her sweetheart had become despondent because of my father's refusal, and that my parents were responsible for his taking to drink, and thus for his death. That was nonsense, because the fellow was a drunkard to begin with. But you try to reason with a girl in love! White Rose announced that she would enter religion. Father and mother did what they could to persuade her to give up that plan, but that only made her all the more stubborn. She threatened to kill herself if they didn't let her go. She entered the White Crane Nunnery in the capital as a novice."

Kang rubbed his upper lip where he had evidently worn a moustache, and continued unhappily: "I went there several times and tried to reason with her. I explained to her that the young man had been notorious for his dissolute life, and that father had been quite right in opposing the marriage. The only result was that she grew furious with me and refused to see me again. Last time I went there, the abbess told me that White Rose had left, and that she didn't know where she had gone. I bribed the gate-keeper, and he told me that a certain Mrs. Pao, a pious widow, had struck up a friendship with her, and taken her away. My parents were worried, and my father ordered me to make further inquiries. By dint of much effort I at last discovered that Mrs. Pao had taken my sister to this monastery, to be initiated as a nun. I decided to follow her in order to try again to persuade my sister to return home. Since I knew she would refuse to see me if I went as I was, I disguised myself as an actress. I am of rather slight build, and I have taken part in some amateur theatricals. As Miss Ou-yang I approached Kuan, and bribed him to offer his services to this monastery for the commemoration festival, and to let me join his troupe. The fellow acted in good faith. You shouldn't blame him, sir.

"The stratagem worked. Mo Mo-te unwittingly did me a service when he teased me during his sword-dance. It frightened my sister and made her forget her resentment against me. After the show she slipped away from Mrs. Pao and hurriedly told me behind the stage that she was in an awful quandary. Mrs. Pao had been very kind to her. She had more or less adopted her as her daughter. Her one great aim in life was to see my sister properly ordained as a nun, for she was a very pious woman. However, in this monastery White Rose had met a young fellow, a certain Mr. Tsung. Though she didn't know him very well yet, her meeting him made her doubt whether after all she had taken the right decision. But on the other hand she could never disappoint Mrs. Pao who had gone to so much trouble for her, and who had consoled her when her own family had turned against her. Those were the words she used, ‘turned against her.' I ask you, sir! Well, I said she had better come up to my room for a quiet talk about what she should do. I told her to take off her black dress. In her white undergarment people would take her for me. She did so and then went away, stuffing her folded black robe in her sleeve."

He scratched his head and resumed ruefully: "I was going to follow her upstairs but in the hall I ran into that fool Tsung. When I had got rid of him and gone up to my room, my sister wasn't there. I went to Mrs. Pao's room, but found nobody there. Then I had a few drinks with Kuan Lai. Just now I went to Mrs. Pao's room again, on the off-chance that one of them would still be up. But the lights were out and the door locked. Tomorrow I'll try again. That's all, sir."

Judge Dee slowly caressed his side-whiskers. He had heard about Kang Woo. He was indeed a well known merchant in the capital. He said: "You would have done better if you had placed this matter in the hands of the proper authorities, Kang."

"I beg to differ, sir. White Rose is entering religion with my parents' consent, and Mrs. Pao is highly thought of in Taoist circles in the capital. And you know, sir, that the Taoists have much influence in government circles nowadays. My father is a Confucianist, but as a merchant he could not afford to become known as an anti-Taoist. It would be bad for his business."

"Anyway," Judge Dee said, "from now on you'll leave this matter to me. Tomorrow morning I'll speak personally with Mrs. Pao and your sister. I shall be glad to try to make her go back on her decision, and her interest in Mr. Tsung will probably help. I wouldn't choose him for my own son-in-law, but he has a good background and he may improve with the years. Anyway I hold that Heaven has assigned to woman the duty of marrying and bearing children. I don't hold with nuns, whether Taoist or Buddhist. Now tell me, how did you get this awful animal, and why did you bring him along here?"

"I am fond of hunting, sir. I caught him seven years ago up north, when he was still a small cub. He has been with me ever since. It has been very interesting to teach him dancing and other tricks. He is very fond of me, considers me as the father-bear or something! Only once he lacerated my left arm with his paw, but that was by mistake. It was meant as a caress! It healed well. It only gives me trouble in humid weather like we are having to-day, then the arm is a bit stiff. When I joined Kuan's troupe I took the bear along, in the first place because he only obeys me and at home no one else can look after him, and secondly because it gave me a good act in Kuan's show."

The judge nodded. All the pieces were falling into place now. On the stage Kang had made little use of his left arm because the scar was bothering him, and when he and Tao Gan had met White Rose in the corridor, she had kept her left arm close to her body because of the black dress tucked away in her sleeve. And she had been in a great hurry because she didn't want to meet Mrs. Pao. She must have met her around the corner, and decided to defer the talk with her brother till next day. He resumed: "I know next to nothing about bears. What would he have done if you hadn't come? Do you think he would have smashed the cupboard to get at me?"

"Oh no! They are cunning enough, but not very enterprising. They don't do things they have never attempted before, unless they are taught to do them. That's why I can leave him here in this room off the chain. He'll never try to get the door open. He would have sniffed and scratched at that cupboard from time to time to make sure that you were still there, then he would have curled up in front and waited till you came out. They have infinite patience."

Judge Dee shivered involuntarily.

"They don't devour people, do they?" he asked.

"Worse than that!" Kang said with a wry smile. "They'll knock a man down and maul him, then play with him as a cat plays with a mouse, till he is dead. I once saw the remains of a hunter who had been torn to pieces by a bear. It wasn't a pretty sight!"

"Good Heavens!" Judge Dee exclaimed. "What a nice playmate!" Kang shrugged his shoulders.

"I never had any trouble with him," he said. "He also likes my sister, though he doesn't obey her as he does me. But he hates strangers. They make him nervous. He is quite funny that way, though. Some strangers he doesn't mind. He just gives them one look, then curls up in a corner and ignores them. Evidently you don't come into that category, sir! But I must say that he is in a bad temper now because he doesn't get enough exercise. Later, a couple of hours before dawn, the only time that this bee-hive here is quiet, I shall take him to the well between this building and the next. There are no doors or windows on the ground floor there, and the alley is closed by a solid gate. It was used formerly as a kind of prison for offending monks, I heard. There he can exercise a bit without danger to anybody."

Judge Dee nodded. Then he resumed: "By the way, have you perhaps seen Mo Mo-te while looking for Mrs. Pao and your sister?"

"I did not!" Kang said angrily. "That rascal is always bothering Miss Ting. I had to keep to my disguise, else I would have given him a thrashing he would remember! He may be taller and heavier than I, but I am a trained boxer and I'll lick him! Now I'll see to it that he keeps away from Miss Ting. That's a fine girl, sir, and good at sports, too. She can ride a horse, better indeed than many a man! If she married me I could take her with me on my hunting trips! I have no use for those delicate, pampered damsels my parents are always urging me to marry. But she is very independent. I doubt whether she would have me!" Judge Dee rose.

"Ask her!" he said. "You'll find her a very outspoken girl. I must be going now. My assistant will be looking for me."

He tried a friendly nod at the bear, but the animal only glared at him with its small mean eyes.