The Strange Case of the Disappearing Dragon (An Ennin Mystery #32)

by Ben Stevens

  The Strange Case of the Disappearing Dragon

  1

  ‘It was there, Ennin-sensei, located upon the roof on the far right-hand side – just as the dragon statue is still there upon the left!’

  So said the priest excitedly, pointing with his forefinger at the sweeping temple roof. This was, indeed, now absent of one of the two marvelous golden dragon statues which had (or so declared the priest) been placed either side of it.

  ‘They were constructed as a pair,’ continued the chubby-faced priest mournfully. ‘Osu and mesu – ‘male’ and ‘female’. When the temple itself was built, some one hundred years ago, they were placed up there. Then yesterday morning I stepped outside, only to realize with a shock that almost killed me that the female statue was just… gone!’

  ‘I see,’ said my master calmly. ‘And you heard nothing during the night?’

  ‘Not a thing – but then, the temple having been locked up for the night, I sleep in one of the rooms located well inside the building. The monks, also, have their quarters near my own, private room. So we could hardly expect to hear anything taking place so high up. Although, Ennin-sensei, I ask you, how is it possible that this statue was even taken…?’

  Once again, my master and I stared up at the spot where the dragon statue had been just a couple of days before. The temple was large and opulent, with the ridge of the long, sweeping roof with its curved grey tiles located at least one hundred feet above us. Looking at the single gold statue still remaining, it was hard to imagine even several ninja being able to get up there to free it from its position, quite apart from the fact that they would then have to somehow get such a large and heavy object (and themselves, of course) down to the ground.

  ‘There is no way to get up there, onto the roof, from inside the building?’ questioned my master.

  ‘Well, you can get up and inside the statues,’ declared the priest. ‘There are a couple of hatches which open up directly inside the statues, designed for the purpose of placing such gifts as gold, silks and other precious items as offerings, when the construction of the temple was finished, as is traditional.’

  ‘Ah yes, of course,’ nodded my master.

  ‘The dragons consist of molded gold-plating, placed upon a skillfully constructed wooden frame. As you can see from the dragon which remains, the statues are not overly large – one man may comfortably enter inside either statue via the two hatches located in the roof of the loft, although no man has done so in years… In fact, both hatches are secured by locks, and I alone have the key.’

  ‘But even getting inside the statue, would not allow someone to then get outside and onto the roof?’ queried my master.

  ‘Absolutely not,’ confirmed the priest. ‘As I understand it, the statues were carried up by a team of laborers when bamboo scaffolding still covered the temple and the almost-completed roof. The two statues were bolted in position at either end of the roof – something which thus made them all but inaccessible, once the scaffolding was removed.

  ‘This was, I can confidently suggest, designed as a way of making these valuable statues as ‘burglar-proof’ as possible. As I have said already, although it is possible to climb up inside the statues from the sloped roof below, still that does not allow you to then get onto the roof.

  ‘For that you would need a very long ladder – or, much safer, some scaffolding…’

  ‘You say the statues were bolted in position…’

  ‘Four bolts, I believe,’ returned the priest. ‘One on each corner of the base of the statue – and done from the outside. But I only know this because I happened several times to study the original architectural plans, which are still stored within the temple.’

  ‘So the hatches in the roof were designed to match up with the hollow bases of the two statues above – once these statues had been placed in position,’ said my master.

  ‘I believe that is so, Ennin-sensei,’ shrugged the priest. ‘It would seem obvious, anyway.’

  ‘I can only assume,’ continued my master, ‘that some thieves – possibly ninja – somehow managed to get onto the roof, and then freed the bolts securing the statue to the roof, lowered both it and themselves down to the ground, and then made off…’

  ‘But why take only the one statue, Ennin-sensei?’

  ‘For the simple reason that it would have taken some time to free the bolts just for one statue, and then also to have to get it down to the ground, and then carry it away to hide it somewhere…

  ‘The statue was taken two nights ago, you say?’ asked my master then.

  ‘Surely,’ nodded the priest. ‘For it was yesterday morning that I noticed it was missing – and I’m quite certain it was in place the previous evening!’

  ‘Quite certain indeed…’ nodded my master. ‘And that, if I remember correctly, was an almost completely moonless night; as in the moon was rather obscured by clouds…’

  ‘But surely that would have made the theft more difficult,’ queried the priest. ‘Admittedly I’m no ninja, yet I can scarcely believe that anyone would be able to get up onto that roof, from the outside, without such a thing as scaffolding being in place.

  ‘Why, look at the underside of the roof which protrudes almost twenty feet out from the top of the building, with the smooth, straight beams of thick timber that offer absolutely no chance of obtaining any grip! How could anyone possibly hope to circumnavigate that, so to then be able to get up onto the roof?’

  My master glanced with an expression of faint good humor at the priest.

  ‘You have excellent eyesight, Jushoku,’ he declared, addressing the priest by his formal title. ‘I’d not really paid such close scrutiny to the underside of the roof…’

  ‘Well, it’s obvious,’ muttered the priest. ‘But, I meant to remark upon there being little or no moonlight that night – surely the thieves would require just such a thing, so that they could see what they were doing? Their task already seems impossible enough, without their also having to perform it in the pitch-dark!’

  ‘That is true,’ nodded my master. ‘Yet a full moon shining, there above such a grand and imposing temple roof, would also serve to illuminate anyone upon it like a beacon. Anyone walking past would certainly see that you had unwelcome ‘visitors’, as it were, and would thus commence banging upon your main entrance to alert you.

  ‘I assume, despite you and the monks apparently sleeping so soundly within the temple, that you might hear someone making such a noise?’

  ‘Well, yes, of course,’ replied the priest stiffly. ‘It’s not unusual for someone to awaken us late at night, after all – especially if one of their family members is dead or dying, for example, meaning that I or one of the monks is required to conduct a bedside service.’

  ‘I see,’ nodded my master. ‘I’m grateful to you for summing my servant and me here, once you learnt that we were staying nearby. But, really, there is precious little I can go on here, so to devise any sort of theory as to what might have happened to your statue.

  ‘I would check that the remaining statue is bolted in place from the outside – for I can presumably now get onto the roof, through the hatch constructed for the missing statue?’

  ‘There is now just a void in the roof, which I have had to temporarily cover up, from the inside, until I decide just what to do concerning a more, err, thorough repair,’ confirmed the priest. ‘The whole statue was completely lifted out of place, together with the hatch on the bottom as well. If the thieves wish to get at the precious objects that were placed inside that statue so many years before, then they
will somehow have to force open the lock – and it is a stout one.

  ‘But in any case, I say again that the statue – both statues; the one taken and the one remaining in place – were bolted in place from the outside. There is really no need to go up on that roof, through the space that has been created by the theft of the statue, for you to see this for yourself. You see how steep the roof is, the titles so slippery, and at that height the wind blows so strong...

  ‘No, I couldn’t stand to go onto that roof myself…’

  As he finished speaking, the priest looked worriedly at my master.

  ‘Thank you,’ said my master. ‘Excellent advice, which I believe I shall heed. There is obviously no need for me to go up on that roof, so to see things for myself…’

  I confess that I was extremely relieved to hear this. For, had my master actually decided to go up there, I would certainly have been required to go with him. And I have no head for heights.

  ‘As I say,’ continued my master, ‘I’m afraid that the disappearance of your statue seems entirely inexplicable. I can only hazard a guess that your temple did in fact fall prey to a gang of ninja thieves; although how they got onto the roof, liberated the statue and so on and so forth, is a complete mystery.’

  ‘I had understood that such mysteries are your forte, Ennin-sensei,’ said the priest, his voice rather barbed. ‘But on this occasion…’

  ‘Quite so,’ returned my master. ‘Come, Kukai – it must surely be time for lunch.’

  And with that, my master and I began walking back to the inn where we were staying.

  2

  My master said little as we ate, the pair of us sat at a rough wooden table in the inn’s communal dining area. It was obvious that the priest’s parting words had somewhat nettled him, and so I also ate in silence, not desiring to disturb his mood. The food was excellent, in any case, and thus deserving of my entire attention. Delicately-carved sashimi, served with plenty of chopped cabbage, radish and soy sauce, and accompanied by a delightfully dry sake.

  Then I, just like those others sat in the front part of the inn – other guests, various manual workers on their lunch-break, and the like – glanced cautiously at the group of men who swaggered in.

  They were obviously wokou, those pirates of mixed Japanese, Chinese and Korean ancestry, who periodically plunder and terrorize the coastlines of these respective countries. Some two or three hundred years ago, I knew, the third shogun of the Ashikaga shogunate, Ashikaga Yoshimitsu, had sent twenty captured wokou across the sea to China, where they had been simultaneously boiled alive in a huge metal cauldron. But still these pirates continued to cause violence and suffering, burning and looting coastal villages, and killing or taking for slaves the inhabitants.

  These wokou wore dark-colored kimono -type garments, most of them with a brown leather jerkin on top. Several men had their hair covered by a dirty bandana, and one man – who had the general appearance of being their leader – wore a patch over one eye.

  Several people dining rose hurriedly from their table, and though they had clearly not finished their meals left the inn immediately. The wokou took their vacated stools, and called for drink and food. They then commenced talking among themselves, in a language which was basically Japanese, but so riddled with slang that it was often hard for an ‘outsider’ to understand it. Only the man wearing the eye-patch did not speak, and I noticed that the others poured him his drink, and made sure that his plate was never empty.

  I, like everyone remaining in the inn’s communal eating-area, shot cautious glances at the seated pirates, expecting them to cause some sort of trouble at any moment…

  (Until now, I have neglected to say that this town was located by the coast, with a large bay surrounded by mountains in a horseshoe-shape. So these pirates could potentially have robbed us all – even murdering us if they felt like it – and then jumped in their ship and sailed away before the daimyo of this area had even a chance to assemble his samurai.)

  Only my master seemed completely unperturbed by the pirates’ presence, continuing to eat with that distant, slightly cantankerous air. And, after a few minutes, the atmosphere within the inn relaxed slightly. The pirates talked softly, and even thanked the visibly petrified young woman who brought them their food and drink, when I had quite expected them to make some sort of clumsy lunge for her. Really, for all their threatening appearance and fearsome reputation, their general behavior was – well, exemplary.

  They finished their food quickly, paid – with a tip – and left. As everyone save my master breathed a collective, albeit silent, sigh of relief, a thin, grey-haired man left his tiny table in the corner and staggered over to where my master and I were sat.

  ‘You’re Ennin, eh?’ he rasped, and from the smell about him – together with his bloodshot eyes and generally grizzled appearance – I realized that he was quite drunk.

  I rose from my seat.

  ‘My master is eating,’ I said sternly, ‘and does not wish to be disturbed.’

  ‘You’re chasing a dragon, eh?’ said the man, his eyes becoming a little feverish as he leaned closer towards my master, pushing against the hand which I now had placed against his chest. ‘Well, I saw it – it flew right above me, shooting flames.

  ‘I tell you – it spoke to me!’

  ‘That is enough!’ I said firmly; then, to my surprise, my master waved one hand.

  ‘That’s all right, Kukai, let him tell his story. Come, sit down, and say exactly what it is you saw.’

  The man nodded, quieting his excitable behavior under my master’s steady gaze, and drawing up an empty stool he joined our table.

  ‘I am Takayama, a farmer,’ he began, raising his soil-blackened hands, with their filthy fingernails, as though in proof of his words. ‘The other night, I was returning from this inn, perhaps a little late – ’

  ‘You say ‘the other night’,’ said my master shortly. ‘Do you mean two nights ago, when the dragon was stolen from the top of the temple roof?’

  ‘Yes, two nights ago – and it was not stolen. It came to life, and it flew…’

  ‘Really, master…’ I began, but again waving his hand my master silenced me.

  ‘I’ve heard of you,’ continued this Takayama. ‘They say that you investigate all that is strange and unusual. But, believe me, you have never encountered anything like this, Ennin!’

  ‘It’s a small point,’ said my master, ‘but perhaps you’d care to address me by including my title, Takayama-san.’

  ‘Yes, yes – of course,’ mumbled Takayama, looking a little shamefaced.

  ‘So what did you see, exactly?’

  Takayama shuddered, and looked longingly at the flask of sake on our table.

  ‘It makes me so nervous to remember what happened, to tell you my story…’ he declared, his brittle voice becoming an irritating whine. ‘I wonder if I might have just… just a…’

  With a sigh, my master said to me –

  ‘Pour him a little sake, Kukai.’

  ‘Thank you, thank you,’ said the wretched, already-inebriated farmer. He raised the cup to his lips, and in one draft almost drained it.

  ‘Your story,’ said my master pointedly.

  ‘I was returning home from this inn, late one evening. I live outside this small town, my hut among the fields that are to be found at the foot of the mountains, the other side of which is the harbor.’

  ‘Thank you, but I am already familiar with the approximate geographical layout of this area,’ said my master. ‘You said you saw this dragon, shooting flames as it said something to you.

  ‘What, exactly, did it say?’

  I barely repressed a sigh, scarcely believing that my master (the man famous throughout Japan – aye, and beyond – for his intellect!) could waste his time listening to such nonsense.

  ‘It said – ‘Look out, fool!’’ declared Takayama, and both his voice, as well as the hand holding the cup of sake, shook as he uttered these three words.<
br />
  ‘The voice, Ennin! I mean, Ennin-sensei… It was a terrible voice, raspy and… and evil… The voice you might imagine a dragon having… Then, a second later, it spat fire above me, so that I could see it, or rather just its head – for there was little or no moonlight that night, so that I could barely see my hand in front of my face as I made my way home. It is only because I have done the journey so often, from this inn to my little hut, that I know the way so precisely.’

  ‘Indeed,’ said my master dryly; but there was suddenly that intense look to his eyes, the one which I knew so well.

  He had realized – something…

  ‘Yes, it breathed fire, a moment after it spoke to me… I saw its golden head, and a little of its body, rising above me… Up into the night sky it flew, that golden statue come to life, and then it stopped breathing fire, and so I could see no more…’

  ‘Have you told anyone else this story?’

  ‘What is the point?’ sighed Takayama. ‘Everyone in this town mocks me, calling me a ‘drunken old fool’ and such. But then I heard that you were staying at this inn, and that the priest of the temple had also heard you were staying in the area, and so requested you to go to the temple to see the missing golden dragon for yourself…’

  The old man shrugged, drained his cup of sake, and finished –

  ‘Well, I knew I could tell my story to you, at least, Ennin-sensei, and so perhaps have a chance of being believed.’

  My master was quiet for a while; and sensing that he was deep in thought, Takayama did not disturb him. He instead wrapped his dirty hands around his empty cup, and gave me a series of pleading looks – but not another drop of alcohol did I pour him.

  ‘This place where you say you saw this dragon – take me there,’ said my master abruptly.

  ‘As… as you say, Ennin-sensei,’ replied Takayama uncertainly, as the three of us then arose from our table.

  3

  We walked through the narrow streets of the town, and into the fields that were before the mountains, the other side of which was the harbor and the sea. The farmer named Takayama tripped several times as he walked, so that I realized that drunk as he was, his eyesight was also failing him. Both these factors – the weakness for alcohol, together with his poor eyesight – made me realize more than ever that his story of seeing the missing gold statue of a dragon flying above his head, spouting fire, was absolute nonsense. And that he should claim that it had spoken to him!