The Phantom Of The Temple

by Robert Van Gulik

  ‘The son of a dog escaped, Princess! Did you see the ghost?’

  ‘A ghost? No, I saw nothing. Was I in a blue funk? Hey, you look terrible! Here, let me wipe your face!’

  ‘Don’t bother. I’ll deliver you to the Hermitage, then have a last look around for that blasted ghost.’

  He put his arm round her shoulders and walked back with her to the Hermitage.

  ‘You’ll see more of me, Princess, one of these days!’ he said. Pushing her inside, he cast a casual look at the quarters of the Abbess. The window was dark now.

  He hitched up his trousers and went back to the clearing where he had seen Fang sitting on the tree trunk. He whistled shrilly on his fingers. The hooting of an owl was the only answer. With a worried frown he lit the lantern and began to search the undergrowth systematically, cursing savagely when the thorny branches tore at his trousers. He knew that Fang would never have gone far from his watchpost.

  Struggling through a clump of wild roses, he came out in a clearing, in front of a group of high yew trees. As he started to cross it he stepped with his right foot into a hole and fell with his face on a round boulder.

  ‘That’s the third time tonight!’ he muttered as he scrambled up. With a sigh he picked up the lantern and relit it with his tinder-box. Suddenly he gasped. What he had taken to be a moss-overgrown boulder was the mangled head of a man.

  A sick feeling rising in his stomach, he let the light shine on the distorted face. Then he heaved a deep sigh of relief.

  ‘Heaven be praised!’ It wasn’t Fang. The face was completely unknown to him.

  He gave the hole a good look. It was newly-made, a small pile of wet earth was beside it. He gazed again at the grisly object at his feet.

  ‘Holy Heaven, it must be Yang’s head, buried here by the murderer! But why did he dig it up again?’

  He raised the lantern and inspected the yew trees. A man was lying in the tall grass below, beside his head a crushed constable’s helmet. With a smothered curse Ma Joong bent over the prone figure and felt his breast. Fang was still alive.

  Ma Joong carefully turned the head of the unconscious man a little. There was a gaping wound at the back of his skull. He felt the area surrounding it, his fingertips delicately parting the matted hair.

  ‘It was a nasty blow all right,’ he muttered. ‘But as far as I can see it didn’t damage his skull. Those helmets are solidly made. There’s an awful lot of blood, but that can’t be helped in the case of a head wound.’ He picked up the helmet. ‘Yes, the foul bastard hit him with that Tartar axe. The helmet may have saved Fang’s life, but there’s no time to be lost. I must get the Abbess at once, and ransack her household pharmacy.’

  He ran down the path to the Hermitage.

  After he had rattled a brick on the gate for a considerable time, the peephole opened. Through the grating he saw the astonished face of Spring Cloud, and that of the Abbess behind her. He reached down and took his identification document from his boot. Holding it up in front of the peephole, he told the Abbess, ‘I am Ma Joong, one of Judge Dee’s lieutenants, Reverend Mother. I found in the wood a wounded man who needs immediate medical attention.’

  ‘Open up!’ the Abbess told the girl.

  In the courtyard Ma Joong explained the situation to the Abbess.

  She nodded gravely and said, ‘Fortunately I have a well-equipped pharmacy here. Looking after the sick and wounded is part of our religious duties. The maid will take you to the kitchen. The bamboo screen there might well serve as a stretcher. She will help you to carry the wounded man here; she is a strong girl. I shall look after him. I shall now prepare a bed in the side-hall.’

  As soon as they were in the kitchen, Spring Cloud turned on Ma Joong with blazing eyes.

  ‘Liar!’ she hissed at him.

  Ma Joong didn’t know what to say. The War God had left him in the lurch! They took the bamboo screen down in silence. She looked at him sideways, and said, suddenly, ‘You are rather a nice liar, though.’

  ‘Good!’ said Ma Joong with a broad grin. ‘You are magnanimous! A real Princess!’

  Judge Dee was in his private office, going over the dossier regarding the financial administration of the district with Sergeant Hoong.

  ‘Good Heavens, what happened to you?’ the judge exclaimed when he saw the big lump on Ma Joong’s forehead, and his torn and mud-covered clothes. ‘Pour him a cup of hot tea, Sergeant!’

  Ma Joong gratefully sipped the strong tea. Then he began his story. He concluded:

  ‘The Abbess cleaned Fang’s head wound expertly, sir. She’s a remarkable woman, remained as cool as a cucumber all through. When we had put ointment on the wound and forced a drug down his throat, he regained consciousness. He said he had noticed that some digging had been done in the clearing recently. Just when he had discovered Yang’s severed head, he was struck down from behind. The Abbess has given him a sedative, and when we left he was sleeping peacefully. The Abbess says that, if he doesn’t develop a fever overnight, he’ll pull through all right.’ He emptied his seventh cup, and added, ‘I haven’t yet told the headman about the murder of the other constable, sir. How shall we break this bad news to the men?’

  ‘Order the headman to assemble them in the guardhouse, Ma Joong. Then tell them on my behalf that I give them my word that the murderer shall get his deserts. Add that it is in their own interest that they keep this murder strictly secret. Then order the headman to go to the temple with a stretcher and fetch the dead body, and Yang’s head.’

  Ma Joong nodded and went out. Judge Dee silently stroked his beard for a while. Then he said to Sergeant Hoong:

  ‘We lost a good man, and another was severely wounded. We have obtained two important clues, but the cost was high, Sergeant.’

  He put his elbows on the table and stared with unseeing eyes at the financial documents before him, deep in thought. Suddenly he looked up and asked, ‘Why is the murderer in such a terrible hurry all at once? For months on end he contented himself with patiently searching the temple. And now, in the brief space of two days, he first commits a double murder, then tries to kill Ma Joong twice, murders one constable and attacks another! Why this sudden urgency?’

  The sergeant shook his head, a worried expression on his thin face.

  ‘For some reason or other the man has become desperate, sir. Attacking an Imperial officer is no small matter. Everybody knows that the authorities will never give up finding the perpetrator, and that he will be executed in the severest manner allowed by the law. That’s why constables can go about their duties armed only with a club. If it’s bruited about that someone had the audacity to attack a constable on duty, it might affect the safety of our entire personnel, sir.’

  ‘Yes, I have thought of that aspect, Hoong. That’s why I told Ma Joong to enjoin the constables’ complete silence.’

  The judge lapsed into sombre thought.

  When Ma Joong came back, Judge Dee took hold of himself. Sitting up straight, he said briskly, ‘The gold must be hidden in a high place, otherwise the murderer wouldn’t have brought a rope ladder. Second, we know now that at least three parties are after the gold. Namely, the murderer who organized the theft, Yang and Seng-san who barged in, and the King of the Beggars who had been promised part of Seng-san’s share. As I have just explained to the sergeant, there is one point that is exercising me considerably. I mean the sudden urgency on the part of the murderer. I wonder whether that could be explained by an entirely new personality having entered upon the scene, a man who has nothing to do with the theft of the gold. That idea, however, is based only on an intuitive feeling. Finally, the problem of the phantom. Until tonight I had dismissed the ghost as just a figment of the imagination of superstitious persons. Ma Joong himself wasn’t certain he had actually seen her yesterday. But tonight he has seen her clearly, and he saw her taking an active part in the murderous attack on him. So from now on we shall have to take full account of that mysterious apparition. What is your
opinion, Ma Joong?’

  Ma Joong gloomily shook his head.

  ‘No matter what or who that spook is, sir, she is in league with the murderer. The other day she didn’t point out the hidden path to the well in order to help me, as I foolishly thought. She did it just to lure me to that far corner of the garden, where the murderer was waiting for me behind the gap in the outer wall. When they saw me going down into the well, they thought that killing me there would save them the trouble of disposing of my dead body. Tonight that damned spook was encouraging me to walk on, drawing all my attention to herself, so that I wouldn’t notice that the murderer was working loose the upper portion of the crumbling wall. But she made a bad mistake when she suddenly raised her arms as a sign for the murderer that I was in exactly the right spot. The gesture frightened me. I halted, and that saved my life-with not a fraction of an inch to spare!’

  Judge Dee nodded. He consulted his notes, then he asked, ‘Couldn’t you give me a better description of the phantom?’

  ‘Well, sir, both times I got only a glimpse of her and both times it was from quite a distance, and in the uncertain moonlight. She wore a robe of thin gauze, I think, and she had a piece of the same material wound round her head, covering her face. She was tall, of that I am certain.’

  ‘Are you quite sure it was a woman, Ma Joong?’

  Ma Joong pulled at his small moustache. He said, hesitating, ‘Everybody spoke about a white woman … And that long robe … but that doesn’t count, of course, for a man can put on a long woman’s robe too… . Well, there’s the figure, of course. Broad in the hips and narrow in the shoulders. Did I see her bosom, now? Yes … or …?’ He shook his head disconsolately. ‘I am sorry, sir. I really don’t know!’

  ‘Don’t worry, Ma Joong! The main thing is that we now know it is an ordinary human being of flesh and blood. Well, you must go to the Hermitage first thing tomorrow, Ma Joong, and see how Fang is getting along. We shall meet here again after breakfast. We must do something, and very soon too. The murderer is desperate, and he may strike again at any moment. Open the window, Hoong! It’s getting so stuffy that I fear we may be in for a rainstorm. And they can be very violent, this time of the year. I’ll remain here for a while, trying to sort out my thoughts. Good night!’

  Chapter 18

  The violent rainstorm that had broken loose over Lan-fang a few hours before dawn had cleared the air. When Judge Dee, accompanied by his Third Lady, went into the garden for an early-morning stroll, a cool, thin mist was hovering over the pond where a profusion of pink and white lotus flowers had suddenly opened. The judge decided to have their morning-rice served in the water pavilion.

  They ate in silence, enjoying the fresh air and the charming scenery. Afterwards they stood at the red-lacquered balustrade, and fed the left-over rice grains to the goldfish. Watching their swift moves as they came dashing out from under the large leaves, the Third Lady said:

  ‘You came home very late last night, and you slept badly, tossing about all the time. Was there bad news? ‘

  ‘Yes. We lost a constable who leaves a wife and two children, and another was severely wounded. But I believe the end of this distressing case is in sight. Only one last piece is still missing, and that I hope to discover today.’

  She went with him as far as the garden gate.

  He found Ma Joong and Sergeant Hoong waiting for him in his private office. After they had wished the judge a good morning, Ma Joong said:

  ‘I have just come back from the Hermitage, sir. Fang is doing well. The Abbess thinks that, after ten days or so, he’ll be perfectly all right. She offered to let him stay there till he has completely recovered.’

  ‘That’s good news!’ the judge said, sitting down behind his desk. ‘Yes, Fang had better remain in the Hermitage, for the time being. Well, last night I went over again the various aspects of Our case. I decided that today we should first make a second search of the deserted temple, then have the King of the Beggars and his daughter in, for a thorough interrogation.’

  Ma Joong shifted in his chair. He cleared his throat and said, ‘To tell you the truth, sir, I got the impression that Spring Cloud sometimes acts as scout for her father’s thieving beggars.’

  ‘That is what I thought when I saw the floor-plan she made of the deserted temple,’ Judge Dee remarked dryly. He opened his drawer and put the sheet of paper on his desk. Smoothing it out, he added: ‘It’s very useful for our orientation, I must say.’

  Ma Joong got up. Bending over the desk, he said eagerly, ‘On this plan I can trace for you exactly how I tried to catch the murderer last night, sir. Look, the gap through which I entered the compound is here. I slipped inside by this door and …’

  He went on to describe the contest in the dark hall, step by step. Judge Dee listened absent-mindedly. He was tugging at his whiskers, staring fixedly at the plan.

  Then my feet got caught in that blasted rope-ladder,’ Ma Joong went on. ‘Here it was, right in this spot. So-‘

  Suddenly Judge Dee hit his fist on the table, so hard that it made the cups ring.

  ‘Holy Heaven!’ he exclaimed. ‘So that is what it was! Why didn’t I see that at once? During my visit to the temple I got a good idea of its layout, yet I failed to notice the close resemblance!’

  ‘What …’ Sergeant Hoong began.

  The judge pushed his chair back and got up.

  ‘Wait! I’ll have to work this out logically. Thanks to that girl’s skill, I have found the missing piece, my friends! Let me now see where exactly it must be fitted in… . Yes, at last a definite pattern is arising from all this confused data. But …’

  He shook his head impatiently and began to pace the floor, his hands behind his back.

  Ma Joong smiled contentedly. During his visit to the Hermitage he had found an opportunity for talking with Spring Cloud alone for a few minutes, and he thought she didn’t seem averse to becoming his regular girlfriend. That she had apparently provided the judge with an important clue might make it easier to straighten out her former petty offences. There was a pleased look on Sergeant Hoong’s face too, for he knew the signs from long experience: the case had arrived at a turning point.

  Quick steps of heavy boots resounded in the corridor. The headman came bursting in.

  ‘The warden of the north-west quarter came rushing here, sir!’ he panted. ‘There’s big trouble there. The Tartars are stoning the sorceress to death. When the warden’s men went to stop them, the scoundrels chased them away, pelting them with sticks and broken bricks… .’

  Ma Joong gave the judge a questioning look. When Judge Dee nodded, he jumped up, pulled the heavy whip out of the headman’s belt and ran out.

  In the stable yard two grooms were rubbing down a horse. Ma Joong sprang on its bare back and rode through the gate.

  In the street he drove his horse to a gallop. The crowd made way hastily when they heard the clatter of the hoofs and saw the horseman approaching. The streets of the north-west quarter had an ominous deserted look. Over the low roofs ahead Ma Joong saw smoke curling up and he heard a confused shouting.

  In the street where Tala lived a motley crowd barred his way. A few dozen Tartars were jostling one another, shouting and cursing. Three Indians were throwing lighted torches on the roof of the house, acclaimed by the slatternly women standing in the doorways of the houses opposite. Ma Joong let his heavy whip descend on the bare, sweat-covered backs of the nearest Tartars, then forced his horse right among them. Shouting angrily, the crowd turned round towards him. When they recognized the uniform of an officer of the tribunal, they fell back in sullen silence.

  Ma Joong jumped from his horse and ran over to the woman lying at the base of the mud wall beside the door. Tala’s long cloak was torn into ribbons, soaked with blood, and there were ugly gashes on the white arms with which she was protecting her face. Broken sticks and stones were lying all around her. As Ma Joong knelt by her side, a brick swished past his head and hit the wall with a th
ud. He turned round and saw a half-naked Tartar stooping to pick up another brick. Quick as lightning, Ma Joong sprang up and was on him. He grabbed the man’s long scalp with his left and let the butt end of his whip descend on the nape of his neck. Throwing the limp body down, he shouted at the crowd:

  ‘Get water buckets and put out the fire. Do you want all your houses to burn down?’

  Tala had let her arms drop away from her face. A gaping wound ran across her brow, and the left side of her face was crushed to a pulp.

  ‘I’ll put you on my horse and take you to …’ Ma Joong began.

  She fixed him with her one, bloodshot eye.

  ‘Burn … my body,’ she whispered.

  Suddenly there was a crash, followed by screams of terror from the crowd. The roof of Tala’s house had caved in. The large head of the fierce deity became visible. The statue’s red face seemed even more horribly distorted by the flames that blazed up all around it.

  Ma Joong gathered the woman in his arms and stepped away from the wall, for pieces of burning wood were coming down from the roof. He saw her bleeding lips move.

  ‘Scatter my ashes …’ she said, nearly inaudibly. He felt her shiver, then her body grew limp in his arms.

  He laid the dead woman on his horse. The Tartar he had felled had been carried away by his friends. The others were kneeling, facing Tala’s house, in abject fear. The burning head of the statue looked down on them with a sardonic smile.

  ‘Get up and put the fire out, you fools!’ Ma Joong shouted at them.

  Then he swung onto his horse and rode back to the tribunal with the dead woman.

  Judge Dee received the news calmly. Giving Ma Joong and the sergeant a grave look, he said, ‘Tala was a fey woman from the time she embraced the creed that leads to perdition. My orders are not to interfere with the religious squabbles of the foreign barbarians, so we shall take no action against the people living in that quarter. We shall have her body cremated at once, as she desired.’