Ma Joong folded his arms. Settling down for a long wait, he surveyed the scanty furnishings. Against the wall behind the sorceress stood a low, roughly-made plank bed, flanked by two bamboo tabourets. On one stood a brass hand-bell with a long, elaborately moulded handle. From the wall above the bed two large rolling eyes stared down at him. They belonged to a more than lifesize picture of a fierce god, painted in full colours. His long hair stood on end, forming a kind of nimbus round the large head. One arm brandished a strange-looking ritual weapon; in his left hand he held a cup made of a human skull. The obese red body was naked but for a tiger skin wound round the loins. A writhing snake hung round his shoulders. Was it the effect of the flickering fire, or did the gaping mouth with the lolling tongue move in a derisive sneer? He got a fleeting impression that it wasn’t a picture at all, but a statue. He couldn’t be sure, for behind the monstrous deity there were only dark shadows.
Annoyed, he averted his eyes from the repulsive sight and scanned the rest of the room. In the far corner lay a heap of rubbish. Animal skins were piled up against, the side wall, beside it stood a large water container of beaten brass. Feeling increasingly ill at ease, he drew his jacket closer round his shoulders, for it was actually getting chilly now. Trying to think of other, more pleasant, things, he reflected that Tulbee wasn’t so bad, after all. He ought to look her up some day and take her a few presents. Then he thought of the woman called Jade, and of her mysterious message which they had found in the ebony box. Had she been saved after all, and where could she be now? Jade was a beautiful name, suggesting cool, aloof beauty. … He had a feeling that she was a most desirable woman. … He looked up. The voice of the old crone had ceased at last.
A white hand appeared from the folds of the cloak enveloping the sorceress. She stirred up the fire with a thin stick, then drew with the red-glowing tip a few diagrams in the ashes, whispering to the crone. The old woman nodded eagerly. She laid a few greasy coppers beside the fire, scrambled up with a grunt and disappeared through the felt door-curtain.
Ma Joong went to get up to introduce himself, but the sorceress lifted her head, and he sat down again abruptly. Two large, burning eyes were staring at him. The same eyes that had glared at him that morning in the street. She had a very beautiful but cold face, and her bloodless lips were curved in a disdainful sneer.
‘Did you come to inquire whether your girl still loves you, Mr Official?’ she asked in a deep throaty voice. ‘Or did your boss send you to find out whether I am practising witchcraft, forbidden by your laws?’ She spoke faultless Chinese. As Ma Joong stared at her, dumbfounded, she continued: ‘I saw you, Mr Official, all dressed up. This morning, when you were following your boss, the bearded judge.’
‘You have sharp eyes!’ Ma Joong muttered. He drew his stool up closer to the fire which was burning low. He was at a loss how to begin.
‘Speak up, what brought you here? I haven’t been receiving stolen goods. See for yourself!’
She stirred up the fire, and pointed with the stick at the corner.
Ma Joong gasped. What he had taken for a heap of rubbish now turned out to be a pile of human bones. Two skulls seemed to grin at him with their toothy mouths.
On top of the skins lay a row of human thighbones beside a broken pelvis, blackened by age.
‘A blasted cemetery!’ he exclaimed, horrified.
‘Aren’t we living in a cemetery, everywhere and always?’ Tala scoffed. ‘The living are outnumbered by the dead by uncounted myriads. We, the living, are here on sufferance. Better keep on good terms with the dead, Mr Official! Now, what is your business?’
Ma Joong took a deep breath. There was no need to beat about the bush with this extraordinary woman. So he said curtly: ‘A vagabond named Seng-san was murdered last night, outside the east gate. He-‘
‘You are wasting your time,’ she interrupted. ‘I only know what is happening here in this quarter. And across the border. I know nothing about what happens at the other end of the city. If, however, you want to know about the girl you were thinking of just now, I might be able to help you.’ Seeing his bewildered look, she went on quickly: ‘Not the little strumpet called Tulbee, Mr Official. I mean the other one, named after a precious stone.’
‘If you know … who Jade is, and where …’ Ma Joong stammered.
‘I don’t. But I shall ask my husband.’
She rose and shook the cloak from her shoulders. Ma Joong got another shock. Her tall, perfect body was stark naked.
He gaped at her, paralysed by a deep-rooted, nameless terror. For the pale, completely hairless shape seemed so unreal, so far remote from ordinary life that its generous curves, far from rousing his desire, made him shrink with fear, the abject fear of the unknown. When, with a tremendous effort he succeeded in averting his eyes, he saw that she had not been sitting on a chair, but on a small pyramid of skulls.
‘Yes,’ she said, in her cold, impersonal voice, ‘this is the beginning. Shorn of all your stupid day-dreams, of all your cherished illusions.’ Pointing at the heap of skulls, she added: ‘And this is the end, shorn of all empty promises and all fond hope.’ She kicked the pile over with her bare foot. The skulls rolled rattling over the floor.
For a while she stood looking down at him with infinite scorn, her arms akimbo, her legs spread. Cold sweat broke out all over him as he sat cowering there. As if in a dream, he watched her as she turned round abruptly and undid a cord from an iron hook in the wall. A screen of painted cloth that had been fastened to the blackened rafters slowly descended. It divided the room into two compartments. She shook her hair and disappeared behind the screen.
The fire seemed to be dying out. He had not understood the full meaning of her words, but they filled him with a terrible feeling of utter loneliness. He stared fixedly at the strange symbols depicted on the screen, his mind frozen. Suddenly the sharp tinkling of the brass bell roused him from his mental stupor. Tala began to intone a monotonous chant in a strange language. First it rose, then it died out, to be revived again by the tinkling of the bell. It grew warmer in the room, and at the same time a nauseating smell of decay drowned the clean fragrance of the camphor wood. Gradually it became hot; sweat was streaming down his back, drenching his jacket. Suddenly the chant changed into a low moaning sound. The tinkling of the bell ceased. He balled his large fists in impotent rage, his nails cutting his calloused palms. His stomach was turning.
Just when he thought he was going to be violently sick, the air suddenly cleared. The clean smell of camphor superseded the foul stench and it grew less hot in the room. For some time all was quiet as the grave. Then her voice came from behind the screen, utterly weary:
THE CONSORT OF A GOD
‘Raise the screen and fasten the cord.’
He rose stiffly and did as she had said, not daring to look at her. When he had tied the cord to the hook and turned round, he saw her lying stretched out on the plank bed, her head on her arm, her eyes closed. Her long hair hung down to the floor.
‘Come here!’ she ordered without opening her eyes.
He sat down on the bamboo stool at the foot of the bed. He saw that her body was covered with a thin film of sweat. Her lower lip was bleeding.
‘Your girl Jade was born twenty years ago, on the fourth day of the fifth month of the year of the Mouse. She died last year on the tenth day of the ninth month. The year of the Snake. Of a broken neck.’
‘How … who did …? ‘ Ma Joong began.
‘That was all I was told. I was told also about myself. Unasked for. Go away!’
With an effort he mustered his courage.
‘I must order you to give me more details. Otherwise I shall have to take you to the tribunal, to …’
She languidly stretched out her hand, still without looking at him.
‘Show me your warrant!’
As Ma Joong did not answer, she suddenly raised her drooping eyelids. He saw that her eyes were bloodshot, they looked broken, dead.
Ma Joong r
etched. He jumped up and made for the door. Half-blinded by the sun, he bumped into a lean shape. It was one of the Tartars. The three were standing in the street now, barring his way. The tallest gave him a push.
‘Watch out, son of a dog! Did you have a good time with the witch?’
All his pent-up fear and frustration burst out. He felled the Tartar with a blow to his chin so ferocious that the man pitched over like a log of wood. The two others ran away as fast as they could: they had recognized in Ma Joong’s blazing eyes the killer’s look. He ran after them, in a blind rage. The people in the street further on quickly made way for the cursing giant. Then he stepped into a hole and fell down flat on his face. When he had slowly scrambled to his feet again, he saw that he was in Tulbee’s street.
She was standing in front of her kitchen, stirring the cauldron with a long ladle. Looking over her shoulder, she was cursing in a strident voice her eldest boy, who was pulling the hair of his shrieking small brother.
Ma Joong’s rage ebbed away. That homely, commonplace scene made a warm, comfortable feeling rise in his breast. He saw from the position of the sun that it was still early in the afternoon. First a bowl of hot soup, to settle his stomach. … He quickly wiped the mud from his face and walked up to her with a broad smile.
Chapter 8
All the lamps were burning brightly in the large dining-room of Judge Dee’s residence, and a bevy of maids were hanging garlands of coloured lampions on the low branches of the trees in the front garden. The First Lady, in a long-sleeved robe of shimmering violet brocade embroidered with gold, was seeing off the last lady guest from her tea party. After she had made her final bow, she cast an anxious glance at the back gate of the chancery. The housemaster had told her that the judge had come back from the temple an hour before, but he had not yet made his appearance. Turning to the Third Lady, who looked very fragile in her rustling long robe of stiff white gauze, she said, ‘I do hope our husband will come in time to receive the Abbess! Dinner will start in an hour!’
The conference in Judge Dee’s private office was nearing its end. The judge was leaning back in his armchair, slowly combing his long black beard with outspread fingers. The light of the silver candlestick shone on his drawn face. Sergeant Hoong sat huddled on the bamboo chair in the corner, tired after the hot afternoon in the temple and the long search in the dusty chancery archives afterwards. His thin hands were in his lap, folding and unfolding mechanically his sheet of notes. Ma Joong, sitting opposite the judge, was looking glum. After the judge had told him about the search of the deserted temple, Ma Joong had reported his visit to the sorceress, and Judge Dee had made him repeat their conversation word for word. Although his prolonged session with Tulbee had rid him of the haunting fear that he could never love a woman again, the recounting of the harrowing interview with Tala had upset him more than he cared to admit.
At last Judge Dee spoke:
‘As to the general remarks of that woman Tala, I prefer not to go further into those. They refer to a perfidious teaching that foully debases what any decent man holds most sacred. As to her astonishing references to the girl named Jade, her knowing that you are concerned with her is easily explained, Ma Joong. While waiting for the sorceress to finish with the old crone, you were concentrating your thoughts on Jade. And Tala, like most women of her strange profession, evidently possesses the faculty of reading other people’s thoughts-up to a certain point, of course. Part of their success as soothsayers depends on that faculty. As to how she knew the dates of Jade’s birth and alleged demise, I wouldn’t even hazard a guess.’
‘Let’s arrest the awful woman and beat the truth out of her!’ Ma Joong burst out.
Judge Dee took an official form from the pile on his desk and filled it out with his red writing-brush. After he had impressed the large seal of the tribunal on it, he said, shaking his head, ‘It is indeed my duty to try to arrest her. But I haven’t the faintest hope that we shall succeed. She fully realizes, of course, that a warrant for her arrest will be issued. Even now she may be crossing the frontier into Tartar territory! Especially since her own people in the north-west quarter are turning against her. Anyway, give this paper to the headman, Ma Joong, and explain to him where Tala lives!’
After Ma Joong had gone, the sergeant asked, ‘Why should she have given Ma Joong that information, sir?’
‘I haven’t the slightest idea, Hoong! At any rate, we know now that the message in the ebony box can’t have been a complete hoax. As to its real meaning, though …’ His voice trailed off. He stared sombrely at the ebony box, which he was using as a paper-weight. The polished jade disc shone in the light of the candle with a malignant gleam.
Tugging at his moustache he let his eyes wander towards the pile of dossiers on his desk, but every time they came back again to the ebony box.
When Ma Joong returned, Judge Dee sat up in his chair.
‘Take a brush and a piece of paper, Ma Joong,’ he said curtly. ‘Write down what I shall dictate you.’ After his lieutenant had moistened the writing-brush, the judge went on: Anyone who can supply information about the full name and present whereabouts of a woman called Jade who disappeared in the ninth month of the year of the Snake, is urgently requested to report to this tribunal at his earliest convenience. Magistrate Dee. That is all, Ma Joong. Take it to the chancery, and order the clerks to write it out a few dozen times, to be posted this very night throughout the city. Putting up this proclamation is the best I can do with regard to the vexing puzzle of the ebony box.’
He sat back in his chair again and told the sergeant briskly, ‘Tell Ma Joong what you have learned about the deserted temple!’
Hoong drew his chair closer to the candle. He consulted the paper on his lap and began: ‘The Temple of the Purple Clouds was built two hundred and eighty years ago by Indian monks, the funds being provided by the local foreign community, which was greatly prospering at that time. The temple suffered various misfortunes during the border wars but the religious services were never interrupted for long. Thirty years ago, however, three priests of the new creed arrived from over the border, accompanied by three nuns. Having settled down in the temple, they converted some of the inmates; the others left in disgust and were replaced by new converts, some Tartar, some Chinese. The new creed was spreading like wildfire among the barbarians, and the foreign population of this district visited the temple in crowds. Then, about fifteen years ago, some leading citizens lodged a complaint with this tribunal, denouncing the obscene rituals conducted in the temple. The magistrate instituted a close inquiry. As a result the Abbot was sent in chains to the capital, all the pictures, statues and other paraphernalia were publicly burned in the market, and the inmates banished.’
‘Good man!’ Judge Dee said approvingly. ‘That’s the only way to deal with such excesses.’
The sergeant glanced at his notes and resumed: ‘These stern measures created unrest among the Tartar population; there was even an attempt at armed rebellion. To placate the excited people, the magistrate allowed one Chinese priest and one Tartar priestess who had recanted to build the Hermitage and to practise there the old Buddhist ritual approved by the authorities. However, the number of visitors dwindled. After a few years the priestess left, and some time after the priest also went away. The authorities sealed the Hermitage. Two years ago, the highway to the tributary kingdoms of the west was moved from Lan-fang up north, and the foreign population of Lan-fang shrunk. Last year the magistrate planned to close down the Hermitage permanently. Then, however, the well-known goldsmith Chang suddenly died, leaving no offspring. His widow, who had always been a fervent Buddhist, became a nun and requested that the Hermitage be assigned to her. The Hermitage was dedicated in the autumn of the year of the Snake, on the twentieth day of the ninth month. That is all.’
‘A rather interesting story, Ma Joong,’ Judge Dee commented. ‘But it doesn’t shed any light on our problem. I had hoped for data on old buried treasure there.’ He sighed.
For a while silence reigned in the small, hot office. Then Ma Joong pushed his cap back and said:
‘Since my trip to the north-west quarter didn’t produce any data regarding the murder, what about my trying the neighbourhood of the east gate tonight, sir? There are a lot of cheap eating-houses and taverns. Seng-san was a well-known underworld figure, it won’t be difficult to locate people there who knew him well, and make them talk about him.’
‘Do that,’ the judge said. ‘There must be a Head of the Beggars here, and he will know much about what’s going on in the underworld. Have a talk with him too, Ma Joong.’
‘Then, as regards the missing head and body, sir, I too believe they were buried in the temple garden. The headman and the constables searched it, but I can tell you from my experience in the “green woods” that in the dark a forest looks completely different. The constables may well have overlooked in broad daylight features that spring to the eye at night. I would like to go there tonight, sir, to have a look around. See the situation through the eyes of the murderer, so to speak.’
The judge nodded slowly. ‘There’s a lot in what you say, Ma Joong. All right, have a try! I put two constables on guard there and they can help by clearing a path for you. Don’t forget to put on thick leggings, for I am told there are poisonous snakes.’ He rose. ‘Well, I shall now take a quick bath and change for the festive dinner.’
Half an hour later Judge Dee entered the main dining-room, clad in his ceremonial robe of gold-embroidered green brocade and wearing his high black cap. He was just in time. His First Lady was leading the Abbess in through the front entrance, followed by his Second and Third Ladies.
The judge hastily went to meet the Abbess. Making a bow, he bade her welcome to his residence. She bowed three times in succession, her hands folded in the long sleeves of her wide, saffron-coloured robe. Modestly keeping her eyes down, she thanked the judge in a few well-chosen words for his kind invitation. He regarded her curiously, for up to now he had only got occasional glimpses of her tall figure when she was crossing the yard to his women’s quarters to give her lessons in flower arrangement. Knowing that she was about forty, he thought she was still rather good-looking, in a cold, rather austere way. Her head and shoulders were covered by a black hood that left the oval of her face free. He noticed the high, curved nose, and the thin, determined mouth.
The Phantom Of The Temple Page 6