Judge Dee nodded. He moved Lee Ko’s card closer to that of the Abbess. ‘This combination,’ he said, ‘is decidedly less attractive. But we must remember that Lee Ko painted those awful Buddhist pictures most expertly. He must have made a close study of the originals that were formerly displayed in the deserted temple; and there he may have met the Abbess, who was already a fervent Buddhist when she was still Mrs Chang. Well, I take the sixth card. You see that I have put Yang’s name there.’
‘Yang is dead!’ the sergeant exclaimed.
‘We shouldn’t ignore the dead, Hoong-to borrow one of Tala’s pronouncements. I put Yang’s card on top of Lee Ko’s, and then I put Mrs Woo’s card beside it. Look, now we have a combination that is even more plausible than that of Mrs Woo and Lee Ko! A frustrated, sensual woman and a much younger, gay student, living under the same roof! She’ll have told Yang about the gold, and made him do the rough work. We saw Yang’s dead body; he was a strong fellow who could have easily handled both Ming Ao and Miss Jade.’
‘But later Yang himself was murdered, together with Seng-san!’ Sergeant Hoong protested.
‘Precisely! That’s why I laid Yang’s card on top of that of Lee Ko. For in the course of the months that followed the theft, the pattern changed. Mrs Woo fell in love with Lee Ko. She told Yang that she was through with him, and that he could say goodbye to the gold. But Yang wouldn’t stand for that. He went to Lee Ko and told him that he didn’t care a tinker’s curse about Mrs Woo, but that he wanted his half of the gold. In order to keep an eye on the pair, Yang forced Lee Ko to employ him, threatening to tell everything to old Mr Woo. Then, however, Yang realized that Lee Ko was not a man to be trifled with, and he decided to try to get the gold by himself, all of it. So he hired Seng-san, the professional bully, who’d help him to search the deserted temple. There they were murdered by Lee Ko and Mrs Woo.’
Judge Dee picked up the six cards. Leaning back in his chair, he shuffled them and said, ‘There are, of course, a few other possible combinations. But we have now surveyed, I think, the essential patterns we must reckon with.’
‘There’s still one more card on the table, sir,’ the sergeant said.
The judge sat up straight. ‘Ah yes, the seventh card!’ He turned it over. It was black.
Holding it up, he said slowly:
‘I had written a name there, tentatively. Perhaps the name of a phantom. The Phantom of the Temple. Then, however, I blacked it out. This card means death.’
He stuck the black card among the others, reshuffled them, and threw the package in his open drawer. He folded his arms and resumed, ‘Ordinarily we should, now that we have arrived at this stage, initiate a laborious and time-consuming investigation. We should trace in detail the antecedents of all our suspects, find out where and with whom they were at the time the various crimes were committed, question domestic servants, shopkeepers, etc. That would take weeks, if not months, even if our friends Chiao Tai and Tao Gan were here to take part in the investigation. Fortunately, we are in a position to take a short-cut.’ He pulled the floor-plan drawn by Spring Cloud towards him. Tapping it with his forefinger, he resumed, ‘Thanks to this excellent sketch, we can conduct this very night a decisive test.
‘Half an hour ago, I had a clerk deliver two letters. One addressed to Mr and Mrs Woo, the other to their friend Lee Mai, the banker. I invited them to come to the deserted temple in two hours’ time, because I wanted to tell them there the results of my inquiries regarding Miss Jade.’
‘What about Lee Ko and the Abbess, sir?’ Ma Joong asked.
‘The Abbess I shall fetch personally from the Hermitage. I want to go there anyway, to see how young Fang is getting along. As regards Lee Ko, you’ll go to his house now, Ma Joong. Tell him that I ordered you to take him to the deserted temple, because I want to show him there something without anyone else knowing about it, to ask his opinion. Take him up the hill by the back road, for he should on no account see that I have other guests too. Keep him waiting behind the temple. When I need him, I shall let you know. Then you’ll bring him into the hall by the small back door.’ As Ma Joong rose, the judge added quickly, ‘Watch him all the time, Ma Joong! He is a murder suspect!’
‘I’ll watch him all right!’ the tall man said grimly as he went out. Judge Dee got up too. ‘Come along, Hoong! I must be there before my guests arrive. I want to test my theory before I test my suspects!’
Chapter 20
The guards at the east gate stared, astonished, at the official cortège. 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 cortège, 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 inquir
ies. 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 o
f 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 Phantom Of The Temple Page 15
