The Haunted Monastery

III

Silently Judge Dee followed him around the corner. There was a dull pain behind his eyes; evidently he had caught a head cold. Moreover, he had been looking through the grey curtain of the falling rain, and it had been only one brief glance. He felt feverish; it could have been a hallucination. He gave Tao Gan a quick look, but apparently his assistant had seen nothing. He said: "You had better go and change, Tao Gan! Come back here as soon as you are ready."

The prior took his leave with many bows. He walked back to the stairs together with Tao Gan.

In the spacious dressing room his First Lady was giving directions to the maids as to which of their boxes should be opened. His two other wives were supervising the bearers, who were busy filling the bronze brazier with glowing coals. The judge looked on for a while, then walked on to the bedroom beyond.

It was a very large room with only a few pieces of solid, old-fashioned furniture. Although thick draperies were drawn over the windows, he could hear faintly the sounds of the storm outside. A huge bedstead stood against the back wall; heavy curtains of antique brocade hung down from its carved ebony canopy, high up near the raftered ceiling. In the corner he saw a dressing-table of blackwood, and next to it a small tea-table with four stools. Except for a large bronze brazier there was no other furniture. The floor was covered by a thick, faded brown carpet. The room didn't seem very inviting, but he reflected that when the brazier was burning and all the candles lighted, it would probably not be too bad.

He pulled the curtains of the bedstead aside. It provided ample room for himself and his three wives. As a rule he didn't like them all sleeping together. At home each of his wives had her own separate bedroom, and he either passed the night there or invited one to his own bedroom. As a staunch Confucianist he thought that to be the only proper arrangement. He knew that many husbands slept with all their wives together in one bedroom, but Judge Dee thought that a bad habit. It lessened the women's self-respect and did not make for a harmonious household. However, when travelling it couldn't be helped. He went back to the dressing room, and sneezed several times.

"Here's a nice padded robe for you!" his First Lady said. And softer: "Do I give a tip to those lay brothers?"

"Better not," the judge whispered. "We'll leave a gift to the monastery when we take our departure tomorrow." Louder he added: "That robe'll do!"

His second wife helped him to change into the dry garments after having warmed them over the brazier.

"Give me my new cap!" Judge Dee said to his First Lady. "I'll have to go down now and say a few polite things to the abbot."

"Come back here quickly, please," she said "We'll make some hot tea, then have our meal here. You had better get to bed early; you are looking pale. I think you have a cold coming on!"

"I'll be up as soon as I can," Judge Dee promised. "You are right, I don't feel too well. I must have caught a bad cold." He tied the black sash round his waist; then his ladies conducted him to the door.

Tao Gan was waiting for the judge in the corridor, together with the novice carrying a lampion. His gaunt assistant had changed into a long gown of faded blue cloth, and he had a small square cap of well-worn black velvet on his head.

"The abbot is waiting for Your Honour in the reception room downstairs," the novice said respectfully when they were entering the corridor that led to the staircase.

Judge Dee halted in his steps. He said: "We'll go there presently."

He stood listening for a while. The sound of the rain seemed less than before. He unfastened the shutters of the window through which he had seen the weird scene. Only a little rain blew in from the darkness outside. He waited till a flash of lightning lit up the building opposite. He saw a solid brick wall directly in front of him. Higher up there were two windows of a tower; below the blind wall continued into the deep well that separated the two buildings. Thunder rumbled again. He closed the window and remarked casually to the novice: "Beastly weather! Lead us now to the store-room opposite there!"

The novice gave him an astonished look. He said doubtfully: "We'll have to go a long way, Sir! We must first descend two floors to get to the passage that connects the two buildings, then we must go up again two…"

"Lead the way!" Judge Dee ordered curtly.

Tao Gan gave the judge a curious look. Seeing his impassive face, however, he refrained from asking the question that was on his lips.

They descended the dark stairs in silence. The novice led them through a narrow passage; then they went up a steep staircase. On top was a landing, surrounding a large square well. The heavy scent of Indian incense wafted up through the lattice work screen that lined the well on all four sides.

"Deep down there is the nave of the monastery's temple," the novice explained. "Here we are on the same level as Your Honour's floor in the east wing." Entering a long, narrow corridor he added: "This leads to the store-room—"

Judge Dee stood still. Smoothing down his long black beard he looked at the three high windows in the plaster wall on his right. Their sills were only about two feet above the floor.

The novice had pushed a heavy door open. He preceded the two men into an oblong, low-ceilinged room. The light of two candles shone on piles of boxes and bundles.

"Why are those candles burning here?" the judge asked.

"The monks go in and out of here all the time, sir, to fetch the masks and the stage dresses," the novice replied. He pointed at the row of large wooden masks and gorgeous brocade robes that covered the wall on their left. The wall on the right was taken up entirely by a wooden rack, stacked with halberds, spears, tridents, flagpoles and other paraphernalia used in the mystery plays. The judge noticed that neither wall had a single window; there were only two small ones in the back wall opposite them. He estimated that those two windows must be facing east, in the outer wall of the monastery. He turned to the novice and said: "Wait for us outside."

Tao Gan had been surveying the room, pensively playing with the three long hairs that sprouted from a wart on his left cheek. Now he asked in a low voice: "What is wrong with this store-room, Your Honour?"

Judge Dee told him about the weird scene he had witnessed when looking out of the window in the guest building opposite. "The prior remarked," he concluded, "that there is no window in the wall of this store-room facing the building where our quarters are, and apparently he was right. Yet I could hardly have dreamt it all! The naked woman must have lost her left arm some time ago, for I didn't notice any blood. If I had, I would have rushed to her at once to investigate, of course."

"Well," Tao Gan said, "it shouldn't be too difficult to find a one-armed woman; there can't be many of them running about in this monastery. Could you see anything of the furnishings of the room, sir?"

"No. I told you I got only one brief glimpse, didn't I?" Judge Dee said crossly.

"In any case it must have happened here in this store-room," Tao Gan remarked cheerfully. "I'll examine the wall; perhaps there's a window concealed behind all those spears and banners there. Perhaps even a trick window."

Judge Dee followed his assistant's movements as he busied himself about the arm-rack. Tao Gan pulled the dusty silk banners aside, looked among the shafts of the spears and tridents, and occasionally rapped the wall with his hard knuckles. He went about it quickly and efficiently, for this work belonged to his former trade. Tao Gan had originally been an itinerant swindler. One year before, shortly after the judge had taken up his post as magistrate of Han-yuan, he had extricated Tao Gan from a nasty situation, and then the wily trickster had mended his ways and entered Judge Dee's service. His wide knowledge of the ways of the underworld, and his skill in locating secret passages and forcing complicated locks, had proved very useful in the tracking down of elusive criminals, and helped the judge to solve more than one difficult case.

Leaving Tao Gan at his work, Judge Dee walked along the left wall, picking his way among the bags and boxes piled on the floor. He looked with distaste at the grotesque masks that were ogling him from the wall. He muttered half to himself, half to Tao Gan: "A weird creed, Taoism! Why should one need all that mummery of mystery plays and pompous religious ceremonies while we have the wise and crystal-clear teachings of our Master Confucius to guide us? One can only say for Taoism that it is at least a purely Chinese creed, and not an importation from the barbarous west, like Buddhism!"

"I gather that the Taoists had to institute monasteries and all that in order to be able to compete with the Buddhist crowd," Tao Gan remarked.

"Bah!" the judge said angrily. His head was aching; the clammy atmosphere of the room penetrated even his padded robe. "Look at this, sir!" Tao Gan suddenly exclaimed.

The judge quickly joined him. Tao Gan had pulled a gaudy silk banner aside that hung against the wall near the large antique cupboard in the farthest corner. Under the dusty plaster that covered the brick wall one could still distinguish the outline of a window.

Judge Dee and Tao Gan in the Store-Room

Silently the two men stared at the wall. Then Tao Gan looked uncomfortably at Judge Dee's impassive face. He said slowly: "There was indeed a window here, but it must have been walled up a long time ago."

Judge Dee looked up with a start. He said in a toneless voice: "It is near the corner of the building. That means that it's about opposite the window through which I looked out."

Tao Gan knocked on the wall. There was no doubt that it was solid. He took out his knife and with its point pried loose a piece of the plaster that covered the bricks with which the window had been blocked. He probed into the grooves among the bricks, and along the outline of the window. He shook his head perplexedly. After some hesitation he said diffidently: "This monastery is very old, Your Honour. I have often heard people say that mysterious, inexplicable things will sometimes happen in such places. Scenes of times long gone by are seen again, and…" His voice trailed off.

The judge passed his hand over his eyes. He said pensively: "The man I saw indeed wore a helmet of a type that is obsolete now; it was used by our soldiers more than a hundred years ago …. This is strange, Tao Gan, very strange." He thought for a long while, staring at the brick wall. Suddenly he looked hard at Tao Gan and said: "I think I noticed a suit of armour of that same antiquated type among the stage costumes hanging on the wall. Yes, there it is!"

He walked up to a mail coat with iron breastplates moulded like crouching dragons that was hanging under the row of leering devil masks. A pair of iron gloves and the empty scabbard of a long sword hung by its side.

"The round, close-fitting helmet belonging to that outfit is missing," Judge Dee went on.

"Many of those costumes are incomplete, sir. Just odd pieces."

The judge hadn't heard him. He continued: "I couldn't see what the man was wearing on his body. I had the impression it was something dark. He had a broad back, and he was quite tall, I think." He looked at Tao Gan with startled eyes. "Almighty Heaven, Tao Gan, am I seeing ghosts?"

"I'll go and measure the depth of the window niches," Tao Gan said. While he was gone, Judge Dee pulled his robe closer to his body: he felt shivery. He took a silk handkerchief from his sleeve and wiped his watering eyes. He reflected that he probably had fever. Could it have been a hallucination?

Tao Gan came back.

"Yes," he said, "the wall is quite thick, nearly four feet. But still not thick enough for a secret room where a man can play about with a naked woman!"

"No, it isn't!" Judge Dee said dryly.

He turned to the old cupboard. The black-lacquered double doors were decorated with a pair of dragons, facing each other and surrounded by a pattern of stylised flames. He pulled the doors open. The cupboard was empty but for a pile of folded monks' cowls. The design of the two dragons was repeated on the back wall. "A fine antique specimen," he remarked to Tao Gan, then added with a sigh: "Well, I think that for the time being we better forget about the scene I saw, or thought I saw, and keep to the problems in hand. Three girls have died here in this monastery, and that has happened during the past year, mind you, not a hundred years ago! You'll remember that the one called Liu was said to have died from illness; Miss Huang committed suicide; and Miss Gao had a fatal accident — they said. I'll utilize this opportunity for asking the abbot for some more information about those three cases. Let's go down!"

When they stepped out into the corridor, they found the novice standing stock-still close to the door, peering ahead of him and listening intently. Seeing his pale face, the judge asked astonished: "What are you doing?"

"I… I thought I saw someone looking around the corner over there," the novice stammered.

"Well," Judge Dee said testily, "you said yourself that people are coming and going here all the time, didn't you?"

"It was a soldier!" the boy muttered.

"A soldier?"

The novice nodded. He listened again, then said in a low voice: "A hundred years ago there were many soldiers here. Rebels had occupied this monastery, and fortified themselves here together with their families. The army took it, and slaughtered all of them — men, women and children." He looked at the judge, his eyes wide with fear. "They say that on stormy nights like this their ghosts walk here and act over again all those horrible scenes … Can't you hear anything, sir?"

Judge Dee listened.

"Only the rain!" he said impatiently. "Take us downstairs; there's a draught here!"