The Phantom of the Temple

XX

The guards at the east gate stared, astonished, at the official cortege. First came two constables on horseback who beat small brass gongs and shouted, 'Make way, make way! His Excellency the Magistrate is approach­ing!' Then came two others, each carrying on a pole a large lampion of oil-paper, marked in red letters 'The Tribunal of Lan-fang'. After them followed Judge Dee's official palankeen, carried by ten uniformed bearers. The headman rode beside the palankeen, and twelve mounted guards brought up the rear.

When the coolies, loafers and beggars sitting at the street stalls that lined the road outside the gate saw the cortege, they got up to join it. The headman shouted at them to stay behind, but the palankeen's window-curtain was raised. Judge Dee looked out and told the headman:

'Let them come if they want to!’

Judge Dee and Sergeant Hoong descended from the palankeen at the bottom of the staircase. Remembering the stiff climb ahead, the judge had not put on his official costume, but chosen a robe of thin grey cotton with black borders and a broad black sash. On his head he wore a high square cap of black gauze.

In the front courtyard of the temple the constables stuck the poles with the lampions of the tribunal in the ground, on either side of the triple entrance gate. The judge told them to wait there. He went on to the main hall, accompanied only by Sergeant Hoong, the headman and the senior constable; the latter carried two lanterns, a rope ladder, and a coil of thin cord.

They remained a long time in the hall. When Judge Dee came down into the front yard again, his face was pale and drawn in the light of the lampions. He told the headman curtly to receive his guests, and order them to wait in the front courtyard. The constables were to place torches in the temple hall and to sweep the floor. Having issued these orders, he went with Sergeant Hoong along the path that led to the Hermitage.

When the Abbess herself opened the gate, the judge thanked her warmly for taking care of the wounded con­stable, and said he wished to see him. The Abbess took them to a small side hall of the chapel, where Fang was lying on a bamboo bed. Spring Cloud was squatting in the corner by a brazier, fanning the glowing coals under a medicine jar. Judge Dee praised the young constable for having spotted the buried head and wished him a speedy recovery.

'I am being looked after very well indeed, Your Honour,' Fang said gratefully. 'The Abbess has dressed the wound, and every two hours Spring Cloud gives me a dose of medicine that keeps the fever down.' Sergeant Hoong noticed the fond glance the young constable bestowed on Spring Cloud, and he saw her blush.

Back in the front yard Judge Dee said to the Abbess, 'Tonight I have invited a few people to the deserted temple for a general discussion of the murder that took place there recently. I would like you to be present too. This area belongs to your religious jurisdiction, so to speak!'

The Abbess made no comment. She inclined her head in assent, pulled the hood closer to her head, and followed the judge and Sergeant Hoong outside.

Mr Woo was pacing the yard, his hands clasped behind his back. He had put on for this occasion a dark-green robe with broad black borders and a high black cap that gave him a very official appearance. His wife, dressed in a dark robe and with a black veil draped over her hair, was sitting on a large boulder. Mr Lee Mai was standing by her side.

Judge Dee ceremoniously introduced Mr Woo and Mr Lee to the Abbess. It turned out that the Abbess knew Mrs Woo already, the latter having visited the Hermitage a few times to burn incense. Standing in the centre of the front yard, they exchanged the usual polite inquiries. The mellow light of the two large lanterns made the grey walls of the temple appear less forbidding. If it had not been for the constables and guards standing about near the gate, this could have been a social gathering, organized in the temple yard to enjoy the evening cool.

'I am most grateful to all of you for having come here at such short notice,' the judge addressed them. 'Now I want you to come with me to the main hall. There I shall explain why I wanted you to be present here tonight.'

He crossed the yard. The six-fold doors were thrown open and they entered the main hall, now brilliantly lit by numerous large torches. The constables had stuck those into the old holes in the wall, bored there for that purpose. Walking up to the altar table in the rear, Judge Dee thought that, in the old days, when the walls were still covered with gorgeous religious pictures, and the altar loaded with all the ritual paraphernalia, this hall must have presented a most impressive appearance. He went to stand with his back against the altar table, and motioned Mr and Mrs Woo to the place directly in front of him. Then he asked the Abbess to stand on their right, Mr Lee Mai on their left. In the meantime the headman had gone to the left end of the altar table, the senior constable to the right. They stood stiffly at attention there. Sergeant Hoong stayed in the background by the pillars, together with six guards.

The judge surveyed the four people in front of him with sombre eyes, slowly stroking his long black beard. Then he addressed Mr Woo, saying gravely:

'I deeply regret that I have to inform you that your daughter Jade is dead. She died here in this hall.'

Having thus spoken, he quickly walked away to the left. Passing the headman he barked at him, 'Move the table!'

The headman gripped the left end of the altar table with both hands, and the constable at the other side did the same. Judge Dee looked sharply at the four people in front of the table. Mr and Mrs Woo exchanged a be­wildered glance. Lee Mai stared at the judge with raised eyebrows. The Abbess stood rigidly erect, watching the headman and the constable with her large, vacant eyes. They had tilted the table a little, then frozen in that attitude.

After a brief, uncomfortable pause, Judge Dee told the headman, 'That'll do!'

As they let the table fall back, the judge resumed his former position in front of it. Again he addressed Mr Woo.

'Your daughter, Mr Woo, had become infatuated with your secretary, Mr Yang Mou-te. You can't blame her for that. She lost her mother at the age she needed her most, and too much reading had given her romantic notions. She was an easy victim for an experienced, dissolute young man like Yang. Give her memory a place in your heart, Mr Woo. After she had told you that fateful night, she ran out of the house. Not to her aunt, but all the way to this deserted temple. For she knew that Yang often came here. She wanted to tell him that you had refused to let her marry him and wanted to take counsel with him about what they should do. However, Yang was not here that night. She found here another man. A murderer, who was just looking at the result of his heinous crime.

'This man had organized the theft of the Imperial Treasurer's fifty gold bars, stolen here nearly one year ago, on the second day of the eighth month of the year of the Snake. For breaking into the Treasurer's room and stealing the gold, he had employed a skilled metal-worker and locksmith, a man called Ming Ao.'

There was a stifled cry. Mrs Woo quickly clasped her hand to her mouth. Her husband shot her an astonished look and went to ask her something. But Judge Dee raised his hand.

'You are aware of the fact, Mr Woo, that, before you married her, your wife had a difficult life. At one time she knew Ming Ao. His brother reported to the tribunal that he had disappeared on the sixth day of the ninth month. That was five weeks after the theft of the gold, and four days before the disappearance of your daughter, Mr Woo. Ming Ao's principal had ordered him to con­ceal the gold here in the deserted temple, and Ming had hidden it expertly, for he was a skilful locksmith, familiar with secret wall-safes, camouflaged hiding-places and all such devices. He thought he was entitled to more than the share promised and refused to tell his principal exactly where he had hidden the gold. I assume that at first his principal tried to make Ming Ao tell by promises, and, when those didn't work, by threats, and, when—'

PREFECT WOO AND THE ABBESS BEFORE JUDGE DEE

'All this seems immaterial to me,' Mr Woo interrupted impatiently. 'I want to know who murdered my daughter, and how.'

Judge Dee turned to the banker, Lee Mai.

'The murderer was your brother, the painter Lee Ko.'

Lee Mai's round face went pale.

'My ... my brother?' he stammered. 'I knew that he was no good... . But Heavens, a murder ...'

'Your brother,' the judge continued, 'must have fre­quented this temple for years, to study the Buddhist pictures here. Somehow or other he must have learned of the existence of a deep crypt under this altar. As you know, most larger temples have such a secret crypt, to store their valuable ritual objects during times of up­heaval, and as hide-out for the inmates. Lee Ko must have tricked Ming Ao into descending into that crypt, then told him he would let him starve there if he didn't reveal the hiding-place of the gold. This happened on the night of the sixth of the ninth month, the night Ming Ao disappeared. Four days later, on the tenth, Lee Ko opened the crypt. He had left Ming Ao there too long; the locksmith had died — without having revealed the secret. Your daughter, Mr Woo, found Lee Ko standing by the open crypt, and he threw her inside. Their bodies are still there. Please stand back, all of you! Yes, that'll do.' Judge Dee went over to the side where the headman stood, and told him curtly: 'Open the crypt!’

Again the headman and his assistant tilted the altar table. Then, with an obvious effort, they pushed it away from the wall, inch by inch. When the distance was five inches, a section of the stone floor measuring six feet square suddenly rose, rotating round an axis located along the foot of the wall, where the altar table had stood. A nauseating smell of decay rose up from the gaping dark hole.

On a sign from the judge, the headman lit a lantern that had a long thin rope attached to it. While he let it down into the crypt, the judge motioned Mr Woo to come to the rim. Together they looked down.

The perfectly smooth brick wall went down for nearly twenty feet. Deep down below lay a mass of rubbish: smaller and larger wooden boxes, a few earthenware jars, and broken candlesticks. At the left were the remains of a woman, lying on her back. The long hair lay around the skull like an aureole, bones were sticking up from the remnants of a decaying brown robe. On the other side, close to the wall, were the remains of a man, lying face down, his arms flung outward. Through the holes in the torn, mould-covered sleeves pieces of gold were sparkling in the lantern's light.

'I went down there with a rope-ladder,' Judge Dee spoke. His voice came muffled through the neckcloth he had pulled up over his nose and mouth. 'In the wall directly above Ming Ao's body there is a cleverly made secret wall-safe. In the last, terrible moments Ming Ao spent here he opened this safe and, half-crazed by hunger and thirst, began to take out the gold bars he had hidden there and stuff them into his sleeves. Then he fell down, dead. On top of the rest of the gold, which had dropped onto the floor. Before the murderer had put Ming Ao in the crypt, he had, of course, examined it carefully, as the most obvious place for hiding the gold. But he had failed to locate the secret wall-safe. And when he opened the crypt and found Ming Ao dead, he didn't see the gold. That we can see it now from up here is because Ming Ao's gown has decayed and been eaten by worms. So, the murderer didn't know that the gold was here, and he began a long and fruitless search of the temple.'

Mr Woo stepped back, his face ashen.

'Where is the cruel fiend who did my poor daughter to death?' he asked hoarsely.

Judge Dee nodded at the headman. He left the hall by the narrow back door. Then the judge pointed at the trap door.

'As you see, this trap door is made of extremely thick wooden logs. They are covered with a layer of cement, and the stone slabs are added on top of that. The door is so heavy that, when closed, there is no hollow sound even when one stamps one's foot on it. At the other end there's a counterweight, underground outside. Two wedges hold it on balance. If the altar table is tilted, then pushed forward in a line perfectly parallel to the wall, the wedges are released. A very clever piece of workmanship.'

The headman came inside with a tall man. Ma Joong followed close behind.

As soon as the man saw the open crypt and the people standing there, he covered his face with his arm. Too late.

'Yang!' Mrs Woo cried out. 'What—'

The man swung round, but Ma Joong grabbed him and pinned his arms down in a wrestler's lock. The headman put him in chains.

Yang's tall body sagged. He remained standing there with downcast eyes, his face a deadly pale.

'Where's my brother?' Lee Mai shouted.

'Your brother is dead, Mr Lee,' the judge said softly. 'He committed two murders, and was murdered himself in turn.' He gave the headman a peremptory sign. Together with the senior constable, he moved the table back to its original place against the wall. Slowly the trap door closed again. Judge Dee resumed his place in front of the altar table.

'You are entitled to hear the full story, Mr Lee. I take up the thread of my narrative. Since your brother is dead, part of what I am going to say is conjecture. But Yang Mou-te will fill in the gaps. Well, after Lee Ko had killed Ming Ao and Miss Jade, he began to search the temple. Since he knew that all kinds of riff-raff frequented it at night and since his search would have to include also the garden, he needed help. So he took Yang in his service. How much did Lee Ko tell you, Yang?'

The chained man looked up with dazed eyes.

'He said that the monks had hidden a treasure there,' he mumbled. 'I ... I suspected there was more to it. I found in Lee's bedroom notes of calculation on the value of fifty gold bars, and ...'

'And you thought you could do better for yourself than the share Lee had promised you,' Judge Dee broke in upon his words. 'You hired the professional bully Seng-san, and together you worked out a plan for luring Lee to the temple and murdering him. Seng-san strangled Lee from behind. Then you executed the second phase of your fiendish plan, Yang. You waited till Seng-san had choked the life out of Lee, and stood bent over his victim. Then you plunged your knife into Seng-san's back. Why did you wait weeks on end before murdering Lee? Then why did you try twice to murder my lieutenant on two successive nights? Why didn't you wait a few days, till we had given up the search of the temple? Speak up, Yang!'

Yang's lips moved, but no sound came forth.

'Tell the truth!' the judge barked.

'Last week ... I went through Lee's papers again when he was out. He used to go to the old bookshops, nearly every day. ... At last he found what he was looking for. A collection of letters, written by an abbot of the temple, more than a hundred years ago. One letter dealt with the building of a secret wall-safe, down in the crypt. When Lee bought a rope-ladder ... I had to be very quick, for I couldn't impersonate Lee longer than a few days at most. I had to get the gold quickly, leave here ...'

'Tomorrow you shall render a full account of your crimes in court,' Judge Dee interrupted. 'Take the prisoner away, headman, and let six guards convey him to jail! Mr Woo, yesterday you asked me what new clues to your daughter's disappearance prompted me to issue a proclamation. I shall now answer your question. There came into my hands a note signed with your daughter's name, stating that she was being kept captive here, and begging someone to rescue her. It was enclosed in an antique ebony box. The cover of that box was decorated with a disc of green jade, carved into the shape of a stylized, archaic form of the character for "long life". Someone had scratched at one side of that character the word "entrance" and at the other side the word "below". Now it so happens that the shape of that character bears a close resemblance to the floor-plan of this very temple. The oblong space in the centre suggests the main hall, the dented lines beside it the cells of the monks, the two squares the two towers. The box was evidently chosen because of this resemblance; it supplemented the infor­mation of the message. The message stated the time, the box the place. And the place was indicated exactly by the word "below" scratched beside the back wall of the hall: it clearly pointed to a crypt, under the altar.'

'My daughter must have found the box in the crypt,' Woo muttered. 'But how did she ...'

Judge Dee shook his head.

'The message inside was signed with your daughter's name, Mr Woo, but she didn't write it. The fall into this deep crypt broke her neck, and she died at once. The box was an elaborate hoax, contrived for reasons not germane to the present issue. The hoax helped me, however, to reconstruct the crime, for it drew my attention to the crypt here. The box was allegedly found near a rabbit hole, on the slope behind the temple. That points to the mouth of an airshaft. This crypt has indeed four air-shafts, to prevent the monks from suffocating when they had to take refuge there for a few days. The large jars in the crypt contained water and dried rice. I shan't detain you any longer, Mr Woo. I shall have the remains of your daughter properly encoffined, and delivered to you for burial. I deeply regret that her life could not be saved. But Heaven has punished her murderer. And the doubts her disappearance caused you have now been re­solved.'

Mr Woo made a low bow. Then he turned and strode to the entrance, followed by his wife. The judge quickly overtook her. He told her in a low voice:

'Yesterday your husband didn't come to the tribunal to denounce you, Mrs Woo. He wanted to protect you. Now you can start your married life anew. Don't look for cheap amusement on the side. You have seen that it may lead to ignominious death.'

She nodded and quickly walked on to join her husband.

When Judge Dee had gone back to the altar, he saw that Lee Mai was standing there, his head down, staring at the closed trap door.

'Please accept the expression of my sincerest sympathy, Mr Lee.'

The banker bowed.

'I mourn my fiancee, sir. I had always hoped that she was still alive. And I am deeply distressed by my brother's bringing dishonour over our family.'

'I have a great respect for your firm character and your unswerving loyalty, Mr Lee,' the judge said gravely. 'A family that counts among its members a man like you should weather all reverses.'

Lee Mai bowed again and crossed the hall to the entrance.

The Abbess, who had been watching all this with her large, vacant eyes, now slowly shook her head and said, 'This temple was destined to become the scene of terrible events, for it has been desecrated by heterodox rites. And where the Lord Buddha leaves, evil spirits and devils come to dwell. I shall at once make preparations for an elaborate purification ceremony. Goodbye, sir.'

'See Her Reverence home, Ma Joong!' Judge Dee ordered. Then he turned to the headman. 'Send four of your men to the east city gate, to fetch bamboo ladders, two temporary coffins, spades, shovels and more ropes. We shall first remove the dead bodies, then the gold. Finally the crypt must be cleaned out. Let's go outside and wait in the yard, Hoong. The musty atmosphere here has become unbearable!'

The judge sat down on a large boulder under one of the lampions of the tribunal, Sergeant Hoong on a tree trunk. From the other side of the outer wall came a con­fused murmur of voices. The beggars and loafers who had followed the cortege from the east gate had eagerly ques­tioned the guards who took the prisoner away. Now they were busily discussing the astonishing developments.

Sergeant Hoong gratefully inhaled the fresh air. He tried to sort out the events that had followed one another in such quick succession, but he couldn't put all the pieces together; it seemed to him that Judge Dee had deliberately left some lacunae. The main point was, however, that the judge had recovered the Treasurer's gold! He smiled contentedly. This would certainly make the high authori­ties in the capital favourably disposed to the judge. It might mean promotion to a better post than this out-of-the-way, provincial district!

'How are you going to transport the government gold, sir?' he asked.

'We shall have it packed in oil-paper here, Hoong, then take it down to the tribunal in my palankeen. There we must have the amount verified at once, and in the presence of reliable witnesses.'

The judge fell silent. Crossing his arms in his wide sleeves, he looked up at the perfectly symmetrical sil­houette of the temple, outlined against the evening sky. The sergeant tugged pensively at his thin goatee, his right elbow in his cupped left hand. After a long while, he said:

'This afternoon Your Honour placed Yang's card on top of that of Lee Ko. Did you already suspect that Yang was impersonating the painter?'

Judge Dee looked round at him.

'Yes, I did, Hoong. It struck me that, although the self-styled painter was able to conduct an intelligent con­versation about the theory of pictorial art — and any student of literature is capable of doing that — he could not paint on short notice the picture I had ordered. His excuses were pure nonsense. A painter who could do the splendid work we saw in the atelier would have set to work at once on a picture of the border scenery, a subject he was thoroughly familiar with and for which I would have paid a good price. And I have never heard from my Third Lady that good paper is difficult to obtain here in Lan-fang. Also, when I visited him unexpectedly, together with Ma Joong, I noticed that the paint in the platters had dried out and was covered with dust, proving they hadn't been used for a day or so. His telling us that Yang was on a spree confirmed my doubts, although I had to admit that Ma Joong had a point when he said that innkeepers often give spurious information. Finally, Hoong, there was this curious outburst of violence of the past three days. Three people killed, and two murderous attacks on Ma Joong! I had the distinct feeling that a new element had entered the case, that an entirely new person was after the gold, a man who had a compelling reason for trying to leave here as soon as possible. That supported my theory of an impersonation. For, although both the painter and Yang were known for their erratic habits, there was still the risk of a shopkeeper or trades­man of their neighbourhood asking awkward questions. After the experiment with the trap door had proved that Mr and Mrs Woo, Lee Mai and the Abbess were innocent, I knew that Yang Mou-te was our man.'

The sergeant nodded.

'It would have taken superhuman self-restraint not to jump back knowing one was standing on a trap door that was about to open on a crypt twenty feet deep!'

'Exactly. Well, a capricious fate willed that neither Yang nor Lee opened the ebony box, and that I found it and discovered its full import through Spring Cloud's floor-plan of the temple. And it's even more curious that Yang, eager to make up for his failure to produce the painting, tried to make a good impression on me by telling me how he got that ebony box — never suspecting what weighty consequences that simple gesture would have! A strange case, Hoong. A very strange case indeed!'

The judge shook his head and began to caress his long side whiskers.

Sergeant Hoong gave him a sideways glance. After some hesitation, he cleared his throat and said, 'You have explained everything, sir. Except the phantom.'

Judge Dee came out of his reverie. Looking hard at the sergeant, he said slowly, 'The Phantom of the Temple shall never stalk about here again, Hoong. The strange ties, mystic and otherwise, that bound it to this old temple have been severed. For good. Ha, there we have Ma Joong!' Seeing the tall man's dejected face, the judge asked, alarmed, 'Has Fang taken a turn for the worse?'

'Oh no, sir. I just had a look at him, after I had seen the Abbess home. He's doing fine.'

Judge Dee got up. 'Good. There's a lot of work to be done, Ma Joong. We shall go back to the hall and open the crypt. The constables will be here soon with every­thing needed for hauling up the two corpses and the gold.'

The judge crossed the yard, his two lieutenants follow­ing behind.

Ma Joong heaved a deep sigh. 'Women,' he told the sergeant sombrely, 'are fickle creatures.'

'So they say,' the sergeant replied absent-mindedly.

Ma Joong laid his large hand on his arm. 'Youth seeks youth, sergeant. One lives and learns. But it hurts.'

Sergeant Hoong suddenly remembered the fond look the wounded young constable had given Spring Cloud, and her sudden blush. So he just nodded and quickly walked on.