Dark Eye of the Jaguar

by Robert Mitchell

  “Is he dead?” she asked.

  “Yes.”

  “What about Jackson Lee?”

  “Yes,” I replied quietly. “The bastard’s dead.”

  “Good,” she replied and walked away and squatted down against the temple enclosure wall, her arms clasped around her knees. I watched as she gently rocked to and fro.

  I turned to Terrence. “What’s going to happen now?” I asked.

  “After they have dealt with the bodies of Brother James’ partner and that vile creature who tried to decapitate Mrs Dunlop with the meat cleaver, they will return and one of the Buddhist monks will drive us back to the seminary in the minivan. They will then wait until he has returned back here again, and call the police.”

  “What will they tell them?” I asked.

  He pointed to the three thugs lying motionless on the flagstones.

  “They will say that they caught these men digging in the grounds, and there was a fight.”

  “Are any of those bastards dead?” I asked.

  “No,” he replied. “At least I don’t think so.”

  I turned and saw two of the monks carrying Lee’s partner’s body towards the gateway; then heard the minivan start up and reverse closer to the partly opened doors.

  “What will they do with the bodies?” I asked.

  “It is better that we do not ask.”

  “Right,” I replied. I had a good idea as to what would happen. They wouldn’t give them any sort of funeral. They wouldn’t even bother to bury them. They would be dumped in some alleyway a hundred kilometres away, or more likely dropped into a river or canal late the following night. If they were found, it would be far away from here.

  I looked across and watched as they manhandled the body through the temple gateway and into the van. There was no respect given. He was now merely an object to be disposed of, a person who had despoiled a temple of their faith, a person who would steal what did not belong to him. Who had he been? We knew almost nothing about him. Had his great-grandfather really been a Boxer, or had this been something that Jackson Lee had made him believe? We would never know. Perhaps his great-grandfather really had been one of the two Boxers that Captain Montgomery Jenkinson-Smythe had cold-bloodedly dispatched as no more than vermin when they had prostrated themselves before him. We would never know how close his actions might have simply come back to haunt his memory, whether the curse of the dark emerald had reached out again.

  “Won’t someone miss him?” I asked. “The man must have had a family, or at least a few relatives. Surely there’ll be questions asked.”

  “Perhaps,” Terrence replied. “But he is no longer any concern of ours, or of yours.”

  The Jesuit Church was distancing itself from the more unsavoury aspects of our discovery. These men were best forgotten, wiped from the pages of history, in the same way that the Church had done for hundreds of years.

  Five minutes later the two monks were back. They each took a leg and dragged the body of the thug who had threatened to smash the relic box and then gone after Sue with the cleaver, out to the van. There was no blood flowing from this one. He didn’t have to be carried. Dragging him left no trail.

  “What about Father Joseph?” I ask. “What will happen to him?”

  “We will take his earthly remains, and the body of Brother James, with us.”

  “Why are you taking Jackson Lee? Why not ask the monks to deal with his body as well? He was worse than the rest of them put together.”

  “Brother James was one of us. He was a Jesuit.”

  “I thought he was just an acolyte.” I replied.

  “Even as an acolyte, he was one of us. Brother James was tempted. He was unable to resist that temptation. We should have recognised his turmoil. We should have helped him in his hour of need. His behaviour was as much our doing as it was his. He will be given a Christian burial.”

  “Yes,” I replied. “And if we left his body for the monks to deal with, the police might accidentally find it and then the Church would become involved.”

  They couldn’t run the risk. I was certain it was as simple as that. But then again, maybe I had to give them the benefit of the doubt.

  “He was of the Church,” Terrence said. “His remains must be dealt with by the Church.” I could see that I had offended him, but I was almost past caring.

  “Will his parents be advised?” I asked.

  “His American mother is dead.”

  “What about his Chinese father?”

  “There has been no contact since the child was abandoned.”

  I was certain then that the funeral of Jackson Lee, or Brother James, would be a very quiet, private one. Nobody would know that he had gone. The servants at the seminary would be told that he had been transferred to some other part of China to do the Lord’s bidding.

  But why was I worrying about what was going to happen to these people, these criminals who wanted to take what was rightfully mine and Sue’s, and the Church’s, and a few small pieces of jade belonging to the Buddhists?

  “What about the chest?” I asked.

  It was the chest that this had all been about. It had been the writing box that had started the chase, and now the chase was over, and we had been the winners, but only if we took the chest with us, and only if what was in the chest was still under our control. Sue and I had controlled it right up until the moment we had entered through the massive wooden doors of the temple courtyard and I had told them exactly where it was. We had lost control then, and we had lost total control when Jackson Lee had pointed the big revolver. I wanted control returned. If the monks took the chest with them, Sue and I were lost.

  “We will take the chest with us as well,” Terrence replied. “The monks want it well away from here. They wanted to remove that which belongs to their temple, but Father Christopher was able to persuade them that it would be safer with us. If the police suspect that the situation is other than what the monks describe, and a search were to be carried out at their temple, well, who knows what the result might be.”

  I was glad that the Jesuits were on my side. They had both a cunningness and a coolness and a power that would beat mine any day. If we had tried to fight the Church from the very beginning I was certain now that they would have won.

  I felt Sue move up alongside.

  “Will there be much trouble with the police?” she asked, addressing both of us. She placed her right arm around my waist, pulling herself tight into my side. I laid my arm across her shoulders.

  “I think not,” Terrence replied. “The matter occurred within the temple grounds. Discretion will probably be exercised. These evil men who came with Brother James will not contradict the monks. They have been involved in murder, and would be executed by the Government if that murder were ever to be disclosed.”

  “Well, why shouldn’t they all be executed?” she asked, her face still tight, pale. “Father Joseph is dead. Why shouldn’t they die as well?”

  “We must turn the other cheek, Mrs Dunlop. The Lord taught us to forgive those who trespass against us. The monks will take them under their wing and show them the error of their ways.”

  “Are they going to get away with just a warning then?” she asked.

  “Both our Society and the Buddhist monks do not want our discovery today made public,” he replied. “The monks will see to it that they do not speak of it. If the truth of this day were to be broadcast to the world then others might lay claim to what we have had returned to us.”

  What others?

  Was he worried that the monks who worshipped in the Temple of Agriculture might want a share, a share of the treasure that had been hidden in their temple grounds for over a hundred and ten years? Was he worried that they might claim that they had been given custodianship of the precious things, and would want a portion, or might they even lay claim to the chest and its contents as goods which had been abandoned by their owner, the Lancer Captain, abandoned when he was killed? Perhaps the J
esuit priests had done their homework. Perhaps Father Angelo had been harder at work than had appeared. Perhaps he had researched Chinese law on the matter and found that Chinese law allowed the owner of land on which gold and silver artefacts had been found to keep a share, with the rest going to the State.

  On the other hand, it could merely be that both the Buddhist monks and the Jesuit Church wanted to keep details of their sacred relics away from the eyes of the general public. Maybe it was just that - those things which were sacred had to be kept secret. But none of that mattered to me. What mattered was that Sue and I received our share, the share that had been agreed upon with both the priests and the monks.

  I looked towards the left-hand side of the gateway. The monks were dragging the limp body of one of the three remaining gangsters through the archway and across flagstones that had been smoothed by the feet of countless thousands of worshippers over the centuries. I wasn’t certain whether he was dead or alive. They dumped him next to the crumpled figure of Jackson Lee. The other two were stirring, the moans of one now loud in the still cold night air. He received a heavy blow across the head from one of the monks and slumped back to the ground. The other one cringed back into the corner of the wall and whimpered.

  I took Christopher by the arm and pulled him aside, leaving Sue with Terrence, and out of earshot.

  “Are they really going to call the police?” I asked.

  He looked at me without speaking and I could see that he was trying to make a decision as to whether he should lie to me or not.

  “I don’t know,” he finally replied. “If anyone reports the gunshots and the police arrive before the monks can restore the area, then they will be told. But, if not, then I think that the monks will deal with those men in their own way.”

  “What way would that be?” I asked.

  “Please, sir,” he said. “Do not ask me to answer that particular question.”

  He knew what was going to happen, but it would be so contrary to his religious beliefs that he needed to wipe all thoughts of it from his mind. He knew that if the police were called in, these remaining two men would talk. He knew that if the monks let them go free, they would talk, even if it were just amongst their own kind. Word would spread about what had happened here tonight. They would talk about the chest, and its contents, and the value of what was within. The value would grow and grow. And Christopher also knew that an eye should be taken for an eye. I looked at him and slowly shook my head from side to side.

  “Please,” he said again. “No more questions. No more discussion. This night will live on my conscience for the rest of my dear life.”

  I looked into his eyes, and tried to look into his mind. I was certain that he was deeply troubled by what had happened. But I was also certain that he somehow excused what was going to happen to these men. I went to open my mouth to speak again, but he forestalled me.

  “No more,” he said.

  “What happened at the seminary then?” I asked. I had seen him on his phone and guessed that he had been talking to Angelo. “Are the servants okay?”

  “Yes,” he replied. “Brother James ordered that the men be released and then they tied the two servants up and locked them in the storeroom. Father Angelo has just freed them.”

  “So,” I said. “Now we know how Jackson Lee knew so much about our plans. Brother James must have been such a big help to Father Angelo!”

  Christopher lowered his head for a moment and then looked up at me.

  “I am sorry for what happened. Would you please take Ms Dunlop and go outside and wait for the van? There must be no more discussion.”

  I turned back to Sue. She was standing next to Father Terrence, her head bowed. Neither of them was speaking. It had all been said. She looked up as I approached.

  “Let’s go,” I said, taking her hand.

  “What was in the two small boxes?” she asked a moment later as we walked slowly out through the front gate of the temple.

  “I didn’t see what was inside either of them,” I replied.

  “Oh,” she replied, disappointed.

  “But I have a fairly good idea.”

  “What do you think it was?” she asked.

  I turned to her and whispered: “Joseph murmured something about a nail, and then about a sacred spike, and then about three pieces of the thirteen.”

  She was quiet for a moment and then spun round to my front. “Oh, my God!” she exclaimed. “Do you think it really was one of the nails that they used to fix Christ to the cross?”

  I quickly put my gloved hand across her mouth.

  “Not so loud!” I said quietly. “We’re not supposed to know.”

  “But is it really one of the nails?” she said as softly as she could, her eyes alight with excitement.

  “Well, it’s probably as real as the fact that the other box is supposed to contain three of the thirteen pieces of silver that were supposed to have been given to Judas when he betrayed Jesus.”

  “My God! That is amazing!”

  “Keep your voice down!” I turned to look back at Terrence and Christopher. They were deep in conversation with one of the monks and didn’t seem to paying any attention to what we were saying. I reckoned that we were far enough away that they couldn’t hear Sue’s excitement, but sound carries far on the cold night air.

  “So you think it really is one of the actual nails and some of the coins that Judas threw away?” she asked, tugging at my sleeve.

  “No.”

  “But they could be,” she replied. “They really could be. Couldn’t they?”

  “They could be, but I doubt it. The main thing is that the priests believe they’re real. If it makes them happy, then that’s fine by me.”

  She was silent until we had almost reached the place where the van had been parked earlier.

  “They’re real,” she said quietly. “I know they are. I can feel it. There was a power there, when the boxes were tossed on the ground. There was an aura. I could feel my heart speed up. My whole body seemed alive.”

  “That was the adrenalin kicking in,” I replied.

  “No, it was something else, something supreme.”

  “Okay, if it’ll make you happy as well as the priests, then maybe they are real. Maybe they’ve been handed down from one generation of priests to another over the last two thousand plus years. But there is one thing.”

  “What’s that?”

  “You can never mention one word of this to anyone, not to Father Christopher, not to Father Terrence, and not to Father Angelo, particularly not to Angelo. And not to anyone else. Not to your mother, not to your sister, nor to any of your friends.”

  “Why not?”

  “What do you think would happen if word got out that one of the spikes used to nail Jesus to the cross was here in a small church in China?”

  “What would happen?” she asked.

  “The whole world and his dog would beat a path to the door of the Church.” I replied. “There’d be arguments as to whether they were real or not. There’d be demands for scientific tests, which the priests would no doubt not allow. The controversy would go on for years. Half the world would be laughing at the Jesuits, and the other half would be trying to lay a claim to the relics. The Pope would probably demand that they be sent to Rome, and this small church in China would lose them. There’s no way the Jesuits want news of the relics to reach the public. They want them close by and easily accessible so that they can gaze at them, touch them, feel their aura and venerate them without having to worry about locks and vaults and crowds of people disturbing the holiness of the relics. They don’t want them to be a mere tourist attraction, being goggled at by Christian and non-Christian alike. And I reckon that’s fair enough.”

  “So, why should we worry about the Church? Why shouldn’t we get the credit for finding them again? We’d be famous!”

  “Okay,” I said. “Just suppose we went to the media and told them we were the ones who led the Jesuit C
hurch to the chest. How much of the story are you going to tell them?”

  “Well, we could tell them about us buying the writing box, and you, clever you, finding the letter from Captain Monty. And about us coming to China and being harassed by Jackson Lee, and then leading the monks and the Jesuits to this place.”

  “Great,” I replied. “And are you going to tell them about Father Joseph being shot?”

  “Maybe.”

  “And what about the person who smashed Jackson Lee’s head in with the shovel? Are you going to tell the world who it was that killed him?”

  “I don’t know who it was.” She thought for a minute and then asked: “Who was it?”

  I turned again to make certain that nobody was paying us any attention, and then said quietly: “Christopher.”

  “I thought it was one of the monks, the one with the crowbar.”

  “No. It was the shovel that did the job.”

  “Oh.”

  “Right,” I replied. “Maybe it was self-defence, and maybe not. But either way, Christopher would be in deep trouble with the law, and, more importantly, with his Church. Thou shalt not kill, and all that. And there’s one other thing.”

  “What’s that?”

  “You told Terrence you thought those guys should be executed.”

  “Yes, but I don’t think I really meant it? They should be punished, but, well being executed is maybe going a little too far.”

  I didn’t reply. I just stood there and looked at her until she finally got the message.

  “Oh, my God! No! They aren’t! Not the priests? Not Terrence and Christopher?”

  “Yes, I’m dead certain,” I replied, which probably wasn’t a good choice of words in the circumstances. “But it’ll be the monks who’ll attend to whatever is considered necessary.”

  “What, get rid of all of them?”

  “That’s the way it looks to me.”

  “What about the two the monks grabbed when they rescued Father Joseph outside that hotel?”

  “I don’t know. It might depend on what they know. I’m fairly certain that Jackson Lee wouldn’t have told them anything about the chest or what was in it. They were just simple street thugs hired to do a job of kidnapping. The monks might just beat them up and let them go. But the other ones, the ones who saw what was in the chest, they’re for the high jump, and you could probably say that we’re letting it happen. We could stop them if we wanted to. There’s nothing to stop us going to the police. We’re accessories both before and after the fact, and just as guilty as the monks.”