The Phantom of the Temple

V

The three men walked through the chancery to the jail in the back of the compound, where a side hall served as mortuary.

There was a musty smell in the narrow hall. In the centre of the red-tiled floor stood a high trestle table. On it lay a long shape, covered by a reed-mat, and on the floor beside it was a large, round basket.

Judge Dee pointed at the basket. 'Let's first see the head,' he told Ma Joong.

His lieutenant placed the basket on the table. When he had raised the lid he made a face.

'Messy affair, sir!' Having pulled his neckcloth up over his mouth and nose, he lifted the head from the basket by the long hair, clotted with blood. He laid it face up beside the basket.

The judge observed the grisly exhibit in silence, his hands behind his back. Seng-san had a bloated, sun-burnt face, the left cheek disfigured by an ugly old scar. The broken, bloodshot eyes were partly concealed by the matted locks of hair stuck to the low, wrinkled forehead. A ragged moustache hung over the sensual mouth, its thick lips distorted to a sneer that showed the brown, uneven teeth. The stump of the neck was a mass of torn skin and coagulated blood.

'Not a very prepossessing face,' Judge Dee remarked. 'Pull that reed-mat away, Hoong!’

The naked, headless body was well-proportioned, the hips slender, the shoulders broad. The arms were long and showed heavy muscles.

'Fairly tall, powerful chap,' Ma Joong commented. 'Hardly the type that meekly tenders his neck to have his head cut off.' He bent over the body and studied the stump of the neck. 'Aha, here we have a blue weal, and abrasions. Seng-san was strangled, sir. With a thin cord, and probably from behind.' Judge Dee nodded.

'You must be right, Ma Joong, that weal is clear proof. One would have expected the face to look different, but the subsequent severing of the head accounts for that. Now, when would this foul crime have been commit­ted?' The judge felt the arms and the legs, then bent the right elbow. 'Judging by the condition of the corpse, death must have occurred about midnight. That is at least one fact that accords with our headman's theory.' He was about to let the arm of the dead man go when he sud­denly checked himself. He opened the balled fist and examined the smooth palm, then he scrutinized the fingers. He let the arm drop and walked to the other end of the table to have a look at the feet.

Righting himself, he said to Sergeant Hoong, 'That blood-spattered bundle in the corner there contains the deceased's clothes, I suppose? Put it here on the table and open it!'

The judge selected from the pile of clothes a pair of patched trousers, and laid them over the legs of the dead body. 'Just as I thought!' he muttered.

Giving his two assistants a sombre look, he said: 'I was very wrong, my friends, when this morning I said that this was just another crime of violence of the underworld. To begin with, it was a double murder.'

They stared at him in incomprehension.

'A double murder?' Sergeant Hoong exclaimed. 'What does that mean, sir?'

'It means that not one but two people were murdered. The heads were severed so that the bodies could be switched. Can't you see that this isn't Seng-san's body? Compare the sun-burnt face with the smooth white skin of the hands and forearms of the body, and look at these well-kept hands, at the feet without callouses! Moreover, this is the body of a fairly tall man, though Seng-san's trousers are too long for him. Our headman has still a lot to learn!’

'I'll call the stupid ass at once!' Ma Joong muttered. 'Then we'll give him a sound ...'

'No, you'll do nothing of the sort!' Judge Dee said quickly. 'The murderer must have had a very strong reason for making it appear that only Seng-san was mur­dered, and that this is Seng-san's body. We shan't un­deceive him. For the time being, that is.'

'Where's Seng-san's body, and the head of that un­known party?' Ma Joong asked, perplexed.

'That's what I want to know too,' the judge replied curtly. 'Heavens, a double murder, and we haven't even the faintest inkling of the motive of this callous crime!' He tugged at his moustache, staring down at Seng-san's distorted face. Then he turned round and said curtly, 'We'll go to the jail next door and have a talk with Ah-liu.'

The small cell was so dark that they could hardly make out the huddled shape of the prisoner who was sitting on the other side of the iron bars. When he saw the three men stepping up to the door, he hastily scrambled away to the farthest comer with a loud clanking of chains.

'Don't beat me!’ he shouted frantically. 'I swear that I ...'

'Shut up!’ the judge barked, then continued in a more friendly voice: 'I just came to have a talk with you about your friend Seng-san. If it wasn't you who murdered him up there in the deserted temple, who did? And how did you get the blood on your jacket?'

Ah-liu crawled to the door. Hugging his knees with his manacled hands, he began in a whining voice, 'I wouldn't know, noble lord. How could I? Seng-san had a few enemies, of course. Who hasn't, with all the com­petition that's going on nowadays? But none that would risk his life to kill him. No sir. As to the blood, only Heaven knows how it got on my clothes. It wasn't there when I left the tavern, that I know!’ He shook his head and began again. 'Seng-san was a tough fellow, he knew how to use his hands. A knife too, for that matter. Holy heaven, suppose it was ...' Suddenly he broke off.

'Speak up, rascal! Suppose it was who?'

'Well ... I think it must have been the ghost, sir. The phantom of the temple, as we call her. A woman all dressed up in a long shroud, sir. She walks in the old garden there, when there's a full moon. A horrible vam­pire, sir. Likes to gnaw off a man's head. We never go there when—'

'Stop talking nonsense!' the judge interrupted him impatiently. 'Did Seng-san have a quarrel with someone recently? A real quarrel, I mean, not just a drunken brawl?'

'Well, he had a mighty big row with his brother, sir; a couple of weeks ago, it was. Lao-woo, that's what his brother is called. Not quite as tall as Seng-san, but a mean bastard all right. He took Seng-san's wench, and Seng-san swore he'd kill him for that. Then Lao-woo left for Tong-kang. With the skirt. But a woman, that's no reason for killing a man, is it, sir? If it had been money now ...'

'Did Seng-san have among his friends or acquaintances a fairly tall, lean chap? Kind of dandy, say a shop clerk or something like that?'

Ah-liu thought hard, wrinkling his low brow. Then he replied, 'Well, yes, I did see him a few times with a tallish fellow who was rather neatly dressed in a blue gown. Had a real cap on his head too. I asked Seng-san who he was and what they were talking about so busily, but he just told me to shut up and mind my own business. Which I did.'

'Would you recognize that man again if you saw him?'

'No sir. They met after dark, in the front yard of the temple. He had no beard, I think. Only a moustache.'

'All right, Ah-liu. I hope you told all you know. For your own sake!’

While they were walking back to the office, Judge Dee told his two lieutenants, 'Ah-liu's remarks bear the hall­mark of truth. But somebody went out of his way to make Ah-liu the scapegoat. He is safer in jail, for the time being. Tell the headman that the session is adjourned till tomorrow, Sergeant. I must change now, for I pro­mised my ladies I would take the noon-rice with them, on this festive day. Afterwards, Hoong, I shall go with you and the headman to the deserted temple, to view the scene of the double murder. As for you, Ma Joong, I want you to go this afternoon to the north-west quarter where the Tartars, Uigurs and other barbarians live. Since the murderer used a Tartar axe, he may well have been a Tartar, or a Chinese citizen who associates with those foreigners. You have to be very familiar with those axes with crooked handles to use them as effectively as the murderer did. Just go round the low-class eating-houses where the rabble hangs out, and make discreet inquiries!’

'I can do better than that, sir!’ Ma Joong said eagerly. 'I shall ask Tulbee!'

Sergeant Hoong gave the judge a meaningful look but tactfully refrained from comment. Tulbee was an Uigur prostitute whom Ma Joong had violently fallen in love with six months before.* (* See The Chinese Maze Murders, London 1962.) It had been a brief affair, for he had soon tired of her rather overwhelming charms, while she proved to have an incurable fondness for ran­cid butter-tea and an equally incurable aversion to wash­ing herself properly. When he had, moreover, discovered that she had a steady lover already, a Mongolian camel driver whom she had given two boys of four and seven, he ended the relationship in an elegant manner. He used his savings for buying her out, and established her in an open-air soup kitchen of her own. The camel driver married her, Ma Joong acting as best man at a wedding feast of roast lamb and Mongolian raw liquor that lasted till dawn and gave him the worst hangover he had had for years.

After a brief pause, Judge Dee said cautiously, 'As a rule those people are very reticent concerning the affairs of their own race. However, since you know the girl well, she might talk more freely to you. Anyway, it's worth a try-out. Come and report to me when you are back.'

Sergeant Hoong and Ma Joong ate their noon-rice to­gether, in the guardroom. Ma Joong had ordered a soldier to bring a large jug of wine from the nearest tavern.

'I know the rotgut the old girl serves up,' he said wryly as he put his cup down. 'Therefore I have to line my stomach beforehand, you see! Now I'd better change into old clothes, so as not to be too conspicuous. Good luck with the search in the temple!'

After Ma Joong had left, Sergeant Hoong finished his tea and strolled over to Judge Dee's private residence at the back of the tribunal compound. The old housemaster informed him that, after the noon-rice, the judge had gone to the back garden, together with his three ladies. The sergeant nodded and walked on. He was the only male member of the personnel of the tribunal allowed to enter Judge Dee's women's quarters, and he was very proud of that privilege.

It was fairly cool in the garden, for it had been laid out expertly by a previous magistrate whose hobby was landscape gardening. High oak and acacia trees spread their branches over the winding footpath that was paved with smooth black stones of irregular shape. At every turn one heard the murmur of the brook that meandered through the undergrowth, here and there broken by clusters of flowering shrubs of carefully matched colours.

The last turn brought the sergeant to a small clearing, bordered by mossy rocks. The Second and Third Ladies, sitting on a rustic stone bench under high, rustling bam­boos, were gazing at the lotus pond farther down, on the garden's lowest level. Beyond was the outer wall, camouflaged by cleverly spaced pine trees. In the centre of the lotus pond stood a small water-pavilion, its pointed roof with the gracefully upturned eaves supported by six slender, red-lacquered pillars. Judge Dee and his First Lady were inside, bent over the table by the balustrade.

The judge is going to write,' the Second Lady informed Hoong. 'We stayed behind here so as not to disturb him.' She had a pleasant homely face; her hair was done up in a simple coil at the back of her head; and she wore a jacket of violet silk over a white robe. It was her task to supervise the household accounts. The Third Lady, slender in her long-sleeved gown of blue silk, gathered under the bosom by a red sash, wore her hair in an elaborate high chignon which set off to advantage her sensitive, finely chiselled face. Her main interests were painting and calligraphy, while she was also fond of out­door sports, especially horse-riding. She was in charge of the tuition of Judge Dee's children. Sergeant Hoong gave them a friendly nod and descended the stone stairs lead­ing down to the lotus pond.

He went up the curved marble bridge that spanned the pond. The water-pavilion was built on the highest point of the curve. Judge Dee was standing in front of the table, a large writing-brush in his hand. He looked specu­latively at the sheet of red paper spread out on the table top. His First Lady was busily preparing ink on the small side table. She had an oval, regular face, and her hair was done up in three heavy coils, fixed by a narrow, golden hairband. The tailored robe of blue and white embroidered silk showed her fine figure, inclining to portliness now that she was celebrating her thirty-ninth birthday. The judge had married her when she was nineteen and he twenty. She was the eldest daughter of a high official, his father's best friend. Having received an excellent classical educa­tion and being a woman of strong personality, she directed the entire household with a firm hand. Now she stopped rubbing the ink-cake on the stone, and motioned to her husband that it was ready. Judge Dee moistened the brush, pushed his right sleeve back from his wrist, then wrote the character for 'long life', nearly four feet high, in one powerful sweeping movement.

Sergeant Hoong, who had been waiting on the bridge till the judge was ready, now stepped into the pavilion. 'Magnifпcent calligraphy, sir!’ he exclaimed.

'I wanted that auspicious character in the master's own handwriting, Hoong!’ the First Lady said with a satisfied smile. 'Tonight we shall display it on the wall of the dining-room!’

The Second and Third Ladies came rushing towards the pond to admire the writing too. They clapped their hands excitedly.

'Well,' Judge Dee said smiling, 'it couldn't but turn out well, seeing that my First Lady made the ink and you two prepared the red paper and the brush! I must be leaving now, for I have to go and have a look at the deserted temple. Some vagabonds had a scuffle there last night. If there's time, I shall call on the Abbess in the Hermitage and tell her that I am planning to post a regular guardpost on the hill,'

'Please do that!' the Second Lady said eagerly. 'The Abbess is alone in the Hermitage with only one maid­servant,'

'You ought to persuade the Abbess to move into the city,' the First Lady remarked. 'There are two or three empty shrines here where she could settle down. That would save her coming such a long way on the days she teaches us flower arrangement.'

'I'll do my best/ the judge promised. His ladies liked the Abbess, who was one of the few nice friends they had in Lan-fang. 'I may be late,' he added, 'but you'll be busy the whole afternoon anyway, receiving the wives of the notables who come to offer their congratulations. I'll try to be back as early as possible.'

His three ladies conducted him to the entrance of the garden.