The Phantom Of The Temple

by Robert Van Gulik

  He strained his eyes but beyond the table he could discern only a pitch-dark vault, flanked by two heavy stone pillars. The one on the right seemed on the point of crumbling down, its outline showed large, uneven gaps covered with clusters of cobwebs.

  ‘Sit down!’ the deep voice spoke.

  As Ma Joong took the bamboo stool, a huge, hairy hand appeared out of the dark and trimmed the candle with a thick thumb and forefinger. Now that the flame was burning high, Ma Joong found that what he had taken for a heap of crumbling masonry was in fact the formless shape of a bearded giant. He was sitting behind the table, hunched up on the raised base of the pillar. His broad, bent back fitted exactly into the cavity formed by the missing bricks. His tousled grey head was bare; long untidy locks hung down over his high, deeply grooved forehead. From under ragged eyebrows large slate-coloured eyes fixed Ma Joong with an unwavering stare. He wore a patched jacket that had faded to the indeterminate grey colour of dust.

  ‘I am Shao-pa,’ Ma Joong told him gruffly. ‘From Tong-kang. A cousin of Seng-san.’

  ‘He lies, Monk!’ the old man in the window screeched. ‘Seng-san never said nothing about a cousin!’

  ‘Lao-woo is doing time,’ Ma Joong went on quickly. ‘It’s my duty to get the bastard who got Seng-san.’

  ‘Why come to me, Shao-pa?’

  ‘Because they say in Tong-kang that you are the boss here.’

  ‘Was the boss!’ Cross-eye shouted. He burst out in cackling laughter. The other reached down, took a broken brick from under the table and threw it at the old man. His laughter ended abruptly in a scream of pain. He began to hop up and down in the window like a frightened bird in its cage. The man whom he addressed as the Monk looked Ma Joong up and down.

  ‘You have Seng-san’s build,’ he remarked. ‘I don’t know who killed Seng-san, but I do know what Seng-san was after.’

  ‘A fat lot of use!’ Ma Joong scoffed. ‘The gold in the temple, of course. The blasted murderer’ll tell me where he hid it all right. After I have got him!’

  The other said nothing. He slowly rubbed the table top with his big hand. Geometrical figures had been cut into the wood, here and there marked with strange, complicated signs. Holding the candle up, the Monk peered at the maze of lines, his large head with the wild mass of grey hair bent. Then he looked up.

  ‘No, I have drawn too many diagrams here; the pattern has become confused.’ It struck Ma Joong that, although the man’s voice was coarse, he used the language of an educated person. ‘I can’t tell you much, Shao-pa. Not much. But I can give you one piece of sound advice. Get the gold, and forget about the murderer.’

  ‘I won’t forget, but there’s no harm in getting the gold first. How much do you want?’

  ‘Two thirds, Shao-pa.’

  ‘Are you crazy? Half. I have to split with Lao-woo, mind you!’

  ‘Like you split with me, Monk!’ the man in the window called out.

  ‘Done.’ The Monk groped in his tattered sleeve and put a small square of wood on the table; it was inscribed with letters of some foreign script. ‘Go tonight to the Hermitage, Shao-pa. That’s a small temple, near the big red one, on the hill outside the east gate. Anybody can tell you. Climb over the wall and knock four times on the door of the servant’s quarters, a small brick building to the left of the gate. Show this marker to the maid. Spring Cloud, her name is.’

  ‘Spring in her pants!’ Cross-eye jeered. The Monk threw a stone at him but missed. As it clattered to the floor, the old man burst out again in his cackling laughter.

  ‘The eyes are going bad on you too, Monk!’ he shouted.

  ‘Has she got the gold?’ Ma Joong asked.

  ‘Not yet, Shao-pa. But she’s mighty near to finding it. Together you’ll get it.’

  ‘That being so, why don’t you go yourself?’

  ‘ ‘Cause he can’t walk!’ Cross-eye jeered. ‘If I didn’t get him his grub, he’d croak like a mangy dog! And they still call him the King!’

  ‘I am a bit feeble on my legs,’ the Monk grumbled. ‘Rheumatism, you know, deep in my marrow. Back and legs grew crooked. But I can still ride a horse, and my head is all right. Make no mistake about that, Shao-pa!’

  ‘What about Yang? Doesn’t he get a share too?’

  The other scratched in his long, straggling beard, all the time fixing Ma Joong with his strange, still eyes.

  ‘So you know about Yang too, eh? Yang has disappeared. Better look sharp, Shao-pa! You might disappear too. I don’t know who did your cousin in, but he knows his job. Go to the Hermitage tonight.’

  ‘Stay with the wench up there!’ Cross-eye shouted. ‘Dirt cheap!’

  The Monk half-rose, pushing himself up on his mastlike, muscular arms. Ma Joong saw that the hulking shape would top him by at least two inches. But the giant’s back was bent and his immense shoulders were sagging at an unnatural angle.

  The small man began to hop to and fro in the window, the black rags flapping about like wings.

  ‘Sorry Monk! Sorry boss!’ he bleated.

  ‘Shut up, Cross-eye. And stay shut up,’ the Monk growled as he let himself down again. And, to Ma Joong: ‘Goodbye, Shao-pa.’

  He leaned back against the pillar. His head sunk on his breast.

  Ma Joong got up, waved a hand at the old man in the window, and went to the stairs.

  He strolled back to the tribunal, whistling a cheerful tune. His expedition had taken the whole of the afternoon, now dusk was falling. But the time had been well spent! The Abbess had warned Judge Dee already that her maid associated with vagabonds, and now he had learned that the wench had been planted there as an agent of the King of the Beggars! He might have an interesting evening-in more than one respect!

  When the two enormous lampions of red oil-paper that lit the gate of the Temple of the War God came in sight, he again went up the broad stairs and burned incense. Evidently the deity was well disposed towards him!

  At the tribunal the headman informed him that the judge and Sergeant Hoong were in Judge Dee’s library, talking to the painter Lee Ko. Ma Joong went quickly to his own quarters, washed and put on clean clothes.

  Chapter 15

  The old housemaster was lighting the lanterns that stood in a row along the front of the marble terrace. Through the open doors of the library Ma Joong saw the judge standing at the large centre table of carved ebony, his hands behind his back. Sergeant Hoong was helping the painter to unwrap a few rolled-up scroll paintings.

  When Judge Dee saw Ma Joong on the terrace, he said to Lee, ‘I regret that you haven’t managed to do that painting of the border scene for me yet, Mr Lee. But I know that superior paper is indeed hard to come by in this distant provincial town. And I fully understand that you don’t want to paint a picture where the atmosphere is so important unless you feel in exactly the right mood. I would like very much to see the three landscapes you did last year. They could be hung somewhere on the wall here, I suppose. Tell the housemaster to get us more candles, Hoong. In the meantime I shall take a stroll in the garden with my lieutenant, to enjoy the evening cool.’

  He took Ma Joong to a rustic stone bench under a high acacia tree below the far end of the terrace.

  ‘The session dragged on till late in the afternoon,’ he told his lieutenant. ‘I had to adjourn it, for the other party had also found new data! I have seldom dealt with such a complicated inheritance squabble! Just after I had changed and taken a bath, Lee Ko came to see me. Presently we shall have a longer talk with him. What did you learn down town?’

  Ma Joong reported the results of his afternoon excursion in detail. Judge Dee was deeply interested in his conversation with the King of the Beggars, nicknamed the Monk. He made Ma Joong repeat it verbatin.

  ‘You did very well indeed, Ma Joong! Now at last we are seeing this case from the inside, as it were! The identity of the murderer remains shrouded in mystery, but we are getting nearer to the Treasurer’s gold! Go tonight to look for it with that maidservant,
that’s much better than that we go there with a troop of constables! Try also to make her talk a bit on the Monk. He seems a most unusual person.’

  The judge brushed a few blossoms from his lap and rose. They went back to the library.

  The room was brilliantly lit by four tall candlesticks. Lee Ko and Sergeant Hoong were standing in front of three large painted scrolls hanging from the upper shelf of Judge Dee’s bookcase, the wooden rollers at the bottom touching the floor. The judge turned his armchair round and sat down, facing the pictures. He silently studied them, caressing his sidewhiskers.

  ‘Yes,’ the judge said, ‘that ink-landscape in the middle I like very much indeed. The two others are perhaps painted with a more delicate touch, but the brushwork of the middle one has the careless abandon of our ancient masters. There’s a tremendous distance there. If you hadn’t put in that small island on the horizon, one wouldn’t know where the sea ends and the sky begins.’

  ‘You have a deep understanding of painting, sir,’ Lee said gratefully. ‘I always aim at creating depth and distance, but I seldom succeed.’

  ‘If we ever succeeded in reaching the utmost of what we are longing for,’ the judge said dryly, ‘there would be a sense of surfeit. Sit down and have a cup of tea, Mr Lee.’

  The old housemaster had come in with the large tea-tray. After they had tasted the tea, Judge Dee resumed: ‘You are a great artist, Mr Lee. You ought to marry, so that you can pass on your art to your sons, in due time.’

  Lee smiled faintly. ‘Married life would engender the surfeit you just spoke of, sir. It robs love of romance, and then the creative spirit vanishes.’

  The judge shook his head emphatically. ‘Marriage is the basic institution of our sacred social order, Mr Lee. If you could live for ever inside four walls, then you could perhaps pursue love without its logical consequences. Since, however, you are compelled to go out into the world, you have to adapt yourself to human society. Otherwise the result is frustration. An ancient writer compared man with a member of a four-in-hand team. Within the team, each horse has a large measure of freedom, going slower or faster, swerving to left or right, for the chariot will never leave the track. The horse that breaks loose from the team may enjoy its complete freedom-for a certain time. But when it has become tired and lonely, and wants to rejoin the team, it finds the road gone and it can never catch up with the chariot again.’

  The painter had grown pale. His hand trembled when he picked up his tea-cup. There was an awkward pause. Then Lee looked up and asked, ‘By the way, sir, how is that murder case in the temple progressing? Have you obtained sufficient evidence to convict the vagabond?’

  ‘We are making satisfactory progress,’ Judge Dee replied vaguely. ‘Slow but sure, you know.’ He took a sip from his tea, to indicate that the time had come for his guest to take his leave.

  Lee Ko was about to rise, when suddenly he clapped his hand to his forehead. ‘How stupid of me! I had planned to tell you at once, sir, and it nearly slipped my mind! After you left yesterday, I remembered that I have indeed seen that small ebony box you showed me.’

  ‘Well well,’ Judge Dee said, ‘that’s interesting! When and where did you get it, Mr Lee?’

  ‘About half a year ago, sir, from an old beggar. He came to the house, and implored me to give him a few coppers for it. It was all covered with mud, so I didn’t see the jade disc on the cover. He said he had picked it up on the wooded slope behind the deserted temple, near a rabbit hole. I was busy and my first reaction was to send him away. But he looked so wretched that I took the box and gave him five coppers. I threw it into a basket with other knick-knacks. Later, when the old curio-dealer from behind the Temple of Confucius came to buy an antique painting from me, I threw in the basket to get from him the round sum I demanded.’

  ‘Thank you, Mr Lee. I am glad that now I know where my box came from. Many thanks for showing me your work. I shall keep those landscape scrolls for a few days, and let you know when I have made my choice. By the way, has your assistant Yang turned up?’

  ‘No, sir, but he’ll be back soon! I made inquiries down town and learned he is on a spree with two boon companions. And that costs money!’

  ‘I see. I happened to meet his former employer, the retired prefect Woo. He said he had dismissed Yang because he was a dissolute youngster.’

  The painter angrily tossed his head.

  ‘Woo is an old stick, sir! Exactly like my brother. They haven’t the slightest sympathy for men who don’t conform in every detail to their vulgar, dry-as-dust view of life!’

  ‘Well, it takes all kinds of people to make a world. The sergeant will see you to the gate, Mr Lee.’

  ‘So that box was found near the deserted temple, sir!’ Ma Joong exclaimed.

  ‘Yes,’ Judge Dee said slowly. ‘Very curious. If Lee is speaking the truth, it would seem that Miss Jade’s disappearance is also connected with the deserted temple. And if it was his intention to tell me a fancy tale, then why did he choose this particular one?’ He slowly stroked his beard for a while. ‘And who would have given him the false information that Yang is on a spree with two friends? Yang is dead!’

  Ma Joong shrugged his broad shoulders. ‘That’s easily explained, sir. As I told you, I met Lee yesterday when he was checking the taverns. And you know what those innkeepers are: they always try to put off a man who inquires after another with a few general statements. They don’t like to get mixed up in other people’s troubles. They have enough of their own!’

  ‘I shall think all this over, Ma Joong. You had better go to the Hermitage after nine tonight. By then the Abbess will have said her vespers and be asleep.’

  The judge walked along the open corridor that led round the inner garden to the apartments of his First Lady. Through the open window came the sound of a two-stringed violin, punctuated by the sharp clicks of a wooden clapper.

  Entering the dark sitting-room, he saw that a number of people were gathered there. They were all turned towards the improvised stage in the rear: a booth about seven feet high, draped with gorgeous red brocade, with along the top a screen of thin white cloth, lit by the oil-lamp hanging behind it. Small, brightly-coloured figures were flitting across it. From the booth came the sing-song voice of a story-teller, accompanied by the animated music of the violin. Judge Dee tiptoed to a corner, behind the audience. This was the shadow-play show his First Lady had promised the children, in connection with her birthday feast the day before.

  His three wives were sitting on a long bench directly in front of the stage, together with the children and their nurse. Behind them stood the servants. Even the scullery maids had been allowed inside the house on this special occasion. All were following the play with rapt attention.

  Folding his arms, the judge watched the colourful display. The graceful puppets, cut from thin parchment and painted with transparent colours, were manipulated behind the screen by iron wires. Now the performer pressed them close to the screen so that one saw, hair-sharp, their expressive profiles, then he let them flutter away from the screen, creating the illusion that they dissolved into the distance.

  As was customary on such occasions, the play was a medley of auspicious legends, where the Queen of the Western Paradise predominated. Now she was haranguing her fairy court, standing under the Paradise Tree on which grew the peaches of immortality, painted a brilliant red. Gesticulating with her long-sleeved arms, the Queen resembled a large, gaudy butterfly. Then the white monkey who wanted to steal the peaches made his appearance. The children clapped their hands and shouted their delighted approval when the monkey started upon his weird pranks.

  Real life, the judge thought, was indeed even more of a medley than this shadow-play. Events unexpectedly overlap; motives get blurred by unforseen developments; the most carefully built-up schemes miscarry through a prank of fate; clever schemes get entangled in the infinite multiplicity of human behaviour. Therefore it was a mistake to seek to interpret the facts on the basis of a
supposed preconceived clear-cut plan drawn up by the murderer of the deserted temple. He had to reckon with a very broad margin of error, and of haphazard coincidence.

  He nodded slowly. Viewed in this light, he thought he could make a guess at the reason why the ebony box had been found in the vicinity of the deserted temple. And then the points that had struck him as incongruous in Miss Jade’s message would find a logical explanation too. By Heaven, if his guess was correct, then Lee Ko’s telling him how he got the box would be the strangest freak of fate he had ever encountered!

  A loud rattling of the wooden clapper announced the end of the first act. The judge quickly slipped outside.

  Chapter 16

  Now that he was going to visit the deserted temple for the second time, Ma Joong thought he had better explore the approach from the rear. So he left the city by the north gate.

  He found the path leading up the slope without difficulty. Half-way up, however, there were several side paths, and he had to retrace his steps a few times before he got on to the track that took him to a small clearing on top of the hill. He paused there a few moments, enjoying the view of the city with its many twinkling lights.

  After he had entered the wood, he found Fang, the young constable, sitting on a tree trunk. He told Ma Joong that his colleague was watching the head of the staircase on the other side of the hill. When he had showed Ma Joong the footpath leading to the Hermitage, Fang went back to his post.

  Soon Ma Joong saw the red-lacquered gate of the Hermitage. The surrounding wall was not too high, and, as far as he could see in the uncertain light, the tiles that topped it were new and solid. It would not be difficult to climb over the wall, but he decided to wait until the clouds obscuring the moon had drifted away; for a dislocated tile could make a loud noise in the quiet night. Poking about in the undergrowth, he collected half a dozen boulders which he piled up against the wall, to the left of the gate. As soon as the moon appeared, he stepped onto the pile and pulled himself up on top of the wall. The roof of the servant’s quarters was directly below him, just as the King had told him. He crept a little farther and jumped down lightly in the paved courtyard. After a brief glance at the lighted window of the Abbess’s living quarters he tiptoed to the door of the small building, and softly knocked four times.