The Phantom Of The Temple

by Robert Van Gulik

  ‘ AT might consult Tulbee again and ask her to make inquiries among her people about a kidnapped Chinese girl,’ Ma Joong said. He reflected that, compared with women like Tala and Mrs Woo, Tulbee wasn’t so bad, after all.

  ‘Yes, do that, Ma Joong. Perhaps Jade has been kept prisoner in some low den there in the Northern Row. First, however, you must get more data on Seng-san. If Miss Jade has really been kidnapped, we’ll sooner or later get those scoundrels. But it is our urgent duty to find the temple murderer before he commits another outrage like the brazen attempt on your life last night.’

  There was a knock on the door and a clerk came in.

  ‘Mr Lee Mai the banker has come back here, Your Honour. He would be most grateful if Your Honour could see him for a moment.’

  ‘Show him in!’ To his two lieutenants the judge said, ‘I noticed that Lee had something on his mind, but the prefect didn’t let him speak.’

  The banker seemed taken aback when he saw that the judge was not alone.

  ‘Sit down, Mr Lee!’ the judge told him impatiently. ‘These two are my confidential advisers.’

  Lee Mai took the chair Sergeant Hoong offered him. He carefully straightened his grey robe. Then, looking at the judge levelly with his hooded eyes, he said, ‘I am most grateful that Your Honour grants me this interview. I couldn’t speak freely in the presence of Mr Woo.’ He cleared his throat. ‘In the first place, I want to repeat that I consider Miss Jade still my fiancée, and that I shall marry her as soon as she has been traced, regardless of what happened to her during the past half year.’ He resolutely closed his thin lips. Then he resumed: ‘Second, I felt that Your Honour hesitated to tell Mr Woo the new evidence obtained by this tribunal because Your Honour didn’t want to hurt him. Regarding me Your Honour doesn’t need to have any such scruples. I am fully prepared to hear the truth, sir, no matter how distressing it might be.’ He looked expectantly at the judge.

  Judge Dee leaned back in his chair. ‘I can only repeat, Mr Lee, what I said to Mr Woo earlier this morning.’ As the other bowed resignedly, the judge went on: ‘However, you would materially assist me in my investigation if you would tell me what measures you and Mr Woo took last year for tracing your fiancée.’

  ‘With pleasure, sir. I went personally to the Chinese licensed quarter known as the Southern Row, and made discreet inquiries. When I obtained no result, I ordered my eldest clerk, who is a local man with a wide circle of acquaintances, to make inquiries in the underworld. He also drew a complete blank.’ He cast a quick glance at the judge and resumed: ‘I am convinced, sir, that Miss Jade was kidnapped not by local people but by a band of travelling touts, who took her away with them at once.’ He rubbed his hand over his moist face. ‘I have written to the masters of the Guilds of Gold and Silver Merchants in the five districts of this part of our Empire, enclosing traced copies of a portrait of my fiancée. But with no result.’ He sighed. Tour Honour was perfectly right in scolding me for not having urged Mr Woo to report to the tribunal at once. But it still isn’t too late, sir! If you would issue a circular letter to the magistrates of-‘

  ‘I was planning to do that, Mr Lee. Could you let me have a dozen or so traced copies of Miss Jade’s portrait?’

  This question seemed to disturb the banker.

  ‘Not … not right away, Your Honour. But I shall do my best to …’

  ‘Good. Add a detailed description too. By the way, you might have those portraits copied by your brother. He, being a professional painter …’

  The banker had grown pale. ‘I have severed relations with him completely, Your Honour,’ he said. ‘I regret that I have to inform you that he is a man of loose morals. For many years he lived in my house, sponging on me. Didn’t do a stroke of work. Just daubed at his paintings, or read strange books on alchemy or by heterodox philosophers. The nights he spent in gambling houses, taverns, or worse. He belonged to the same circle as Mrs Woo and …’ He broke off and bit his lips.

  ‘Mrs Woo?’ the judge asked, astonished.

  ‘I shouldn’t have mentioned her, sir!’ Lee said contritely. ‘Now that I have done so, however, I may as well tell you, in the strictest confidence, of course, that I knew Mrs Woo and the man she lived with before her marriage to Mr Woo. The man was an able metal-worker who occasionally did odd jobs for me. But he was a crook and associated with crooks. When he left her, she came to me, asking whether I could help her to a job, perhaps in a shop. Woo happened to drop in, and he took a fancy to her at once. I wanted to warn him about the milieu she came from, but she swore to me that she had never taken part in any crooked business, and solemnly assured me that she would make Woo a good wife. I had to admit that she was a most energetic and capable woman, so I held my peace and Woo married her. On the fifteenth day of the fifth month last year, it was. I must say that she indeed managed his affairs very well. Unfortunately, she didn’t get along with Miss Jade.’ ‘Yes, I heard rumours to that effect. Why?’ ‘Well, sir, Miss Jade was a sweet girl, with much book-learning but wholly ignorant of the ways of the world. Prone to look at things from a purely theoretical angle, you see. She made no allowances for the fact that her stepmother came from a quite different milieu but took an instant dislike to her. The dislike was mutual, I believe. Mr Woo understood and kept Jade’s upbringing in his own hands. Quite an unusual situation, sir: a young woman having no elder woman to turn to for advice. Therefore I was overjoyed when Mr Woo proposed that I marry her. I am a bit older than she, of course, but Mr Woo said that Jade needed a husband who would have the patience to explain things to her and tell her what was going on in the world. In other words, a husband who could take the place by her side Woo himself had occupied since her mother’s death.’

  The banker smoothed his jet-black moustache with the tip of his forefinger before he resumed: ‘I am deeply in love with Miss Jade, sir, and I think I may say that I am young for my years. My only hobby is hunting, and that keeps me fit.’

  ‘Quite. By the way, do you agree with Mr Woo that his secretary Yang made eyes at Jade?’

  ‘No, sir. I can’t say I particularly liked Yang; he frequented the same establishments as my dissolute brother. But in the house his behaviour was always correct. He is a man of letters, after all.’ He thought for a while, then went on, ‘Perhaps Mr Woo was inclined to be a bit over-suspicious regarding the intentions of other men concerning his daughter. Miss Jade didn’t have what you would call a happy home, sir, and that was one reason more why I wanted to have the wedding as soon as possible.’

  ‘Thank you for your valuable information, Mr Lee. If there’s nothing else you want to discuss, we’ll now terminate our interview. I have several urgent matters to attend to before the session opens. I shall keep you informed about the progress of my inquiries.’

  When the banker had made his bow and left, Ma Joong remarked, ‘A decent fellow. We must try to …’

  The judge wasn’t listening to him. He said pensively, ‘I wonder why Mr Lee came back here. Going over in my mind the gist of our conversation, I can only remember one question he asked. Namely, what new evidence I had found. He also made two specific statements: he reiterated his firm intention to marry Miss Jade, and he stressed the importance of looking for her in other districts. Hardly worth paying me a visit for! I find this very curious.’

  ‘I think, sir,’ Sergeant Hoong put in, ‘that he also wanted to blacken Mrs Woo. His mentioning her name was no slip of the tongue. He brought up her past intentionally.’

  ‘Yes, I had the same impression, Hoong. Well, let’s turn now to the double murder, my friends. I had planned to go to the deserted temple for a thorough search directly after breakfast, but all these visitors have left no time for that. We shall go there after the session. I shall close it as soon as possible-just make a few non-committal remarks about the murder in the temple and say that the investigation is still in progress and Ah-liu kept in confinement pending the results. You needn’t be present in court, Ma Joong. I want you
to look up that so-called King of the Beggars. Even though he doesn’t wield much influence any more, he knows, of course, a lot about what is going on in town. Ask him whether he knew Seng-san. Then you might also try to find the man who tattooed Seng-san. There can’t be many of them about, for the taste for that peculiar form of personal adornment is dying out. It’s hard to believe, but touts and other low-class bullies are as fastidious about the dictates of fashion as famous courtesans! If you locate the fellow, ask him what comment Seng-san made when he had the profile of the temple tattooed on his back. I hope that …’

  The headman came in, carrying two heavy dossiers. He deposited them on the desk and said, with an important air, ‘Additional evidence has been forthcoming in the case Kao vs Lo, Your Honour. Kao is confident that, on the basis of this data, Your Honour will be able to settle the case during the morning session. I have brought the dossiers from the chancery, sir, for your inspection.’ He dusted the covers of the dossiers with loving care. They contained all the documents relating to a most involved dispute about an inheritance that had been pending for several months, and which concerned large sums of money. Since it was customary that the winning party gave a generous bonus to the headman and his underlings, they took a deep interest in such cases.

  ‘All right, headman. See to it that the courtroom is prepared for the session!’

  As soon as the headman had closed the door behind him, Judge Dee exclaimed, annoyed, ‘Of all the bad luck! I had entrusted the case Kao vs Lo entirely to our senior scribe. He has made a special study of it and has all the details at his fingertips! And now he is in Tong-kang! We shall have to go through those two files quickly, Hoong! The session opens in an hour! Take your time over those errands I told you about, Ma Joong. I greatly fear that the session will last till late in the afternoon!’

  Chapter 14

  Ma Joong changed into the same old jacket and trousers he had worn when visiting Tulbee and Tala the day before. He went to the market and sat down at the long table of a cheap open-air eating-house, frequented by porters and chair coolies. He had a large bowl of spiced noodles, and then a second one, for they tasted very good. He belched contentedly, reached for a toothpick and said to the coolie who was gobbling his noodles beside him, ‘That snake on your arm looks good. My wench told me I ought to have one tattooed on my breast, one that moves when I breathe. That’d tickle her no end, she says.’

  The other surveyed Ma Joong’s wide chest with an appraising eye.

  That’ll cost you a lot of money! But you don’t have to go far to spend it. The best man has a stall in the next passage.’

  Ma Joong found the expert busily sorting out his bamboo needles. He watched him for a while, then told him in a surly voice, ‘The tiger mask you put on the back of my friend Seng-san was no damn good! He was killed!’

  ‘His own fault, brother! I told him that a tiger mask can’t protect you properly if you don’t have its red whiskers added. That would’ve been ten coppers extra, because good red dye comes expensive, you see. Your friend refused. And see what happened to him!’

  ‘He told me he didn’t need any whiskers to his tiger mask, because the holy picture of the temple you tattooed across his hips was a powerful charm. Why spend ten good coppers for nothing?’

  ‘So, it was a temple, was it? Seng-san said it was just a house, begging to be burglared! Much gold and much happiness, he told me to put underneath. Got neither, the poor bastard! What about you, mister? Want to see my book of samples? ‘

  ‘Not me! I am a coward about pain! So long.’

  He strolled on, pensively chewing on his toothpick. Seng-san had been close-lipped about the gold all right. When he arrived in front of the Temple of the War God, he went up the broad marble steps and bought two coppers’ worth of incense sticks from the priest who sat dozing in his small office. Ma Joong lit the incense sticks and stuck them in the bronze burner on the altar. Above it rose the huge gilt statue of the deity, a fierce bearded warrior who brandished a sword ten feet long.

  ‘Grant me a bit of luck today, will you, Excellency?’ he muttered. ‘And throw in a pretty little wench, if possible. There’s an acute shortage of them in the cases I am now dealing with!’

  In the street below a one-legged beggar stuck out his hand. Ma Joong put a copper in the dirty palm, and asked for the cellar of the King. The man gave him one look from his shifty eyes, sunk deep in the loose flesh of his face. Then he hobbled away on his crutches as fast as he could. Ma Joong cursed. He approached two loafers, but they only gave him a blank stare.

  He walked aimlessly through the smelly alleys and noisy back streets, trying to find a good place to ask about the elusive King’s whereabouts. He knew that the poor are jealous of their secrets and, out of sheer necessity, always stick to one another. Tired and thirsty, he entered a small tavern. Sitting down at the greasy counter, he reflected that he would have to establish an identity. He was certain that nobody would doubt he was a vagrant ruffian; but they didn’t know him, and that made all the difference. The half-dozen coolies at the counter eyed him suspiciously. Moodily staring at the liquor in the earthenware bowl before him, he again regretted that his colleague and blood-brother Chiao Tai wasn’t with him. One carefully staged scene between the two of them would at once clear the hostile atmosphere.

  When he had emptied his third bowl, the door-curtain was pulled aside and a slatternly woman entered. The coolies knew her; they greeted her with a few coarse jokes. One grabbed the sleeve of her faded gown. She pushed him away with an obscene curse.

  ‘Hands off! I work only at night, the day is for sleeping. Had to see my old mother, she’s spitting blood again, and no one to look after her. Give me a drink, I’ll even pay cash!’

  ‘Have it on me,’ Ma Joong said gruffly.

  ‘Why? Who are you?’

  ‘From Tong-kang. A cousin of Seng-san.’

  The coolies gave him an appraising look.

  ‘Come to rake in his inheritance?’ one asked with a sneer.

  The others guffawed.

  ‘I have come to settle the bill,’ Ma Joong said softly. And when they suddenly fell silent, he added: ‘Anyone want to help? ‘

  ‘That bill is far too big for us, stranger,’ an old coolie said slowly. ‘The thief-catchers got Ah-liu, and they’ll chop his head off, naturally. But Ah-liu didn’t do it. No one from among us. A damned outsider.’

  ‘I don’t care who it is, as long as I get my hands on him. What about the King?’

  ‘The King is bad luck,’ the prostitute muttered. ‘Ask the girls who live there! Ten coppers a turn, sight unseen!’ She gulped down her drink. ‘Ask him, anyway. I seem to remember I once saw Seng-san about there.’

  Ma Joong got up and paid their bill.

  ‘Take me there,’ he told the woman. ‘There’s ten coppers in it for you.’

  ‘I’ll show you the place gratis, for nothing. Seng-san was mean, but he was done in by a blooming outsider, and we can’t take that.’

  The coolies grunted their approval.

  The woman took Ma Joong a few streets down. She halted on the corner of a crooked alley.

  ‘At the other end is an old army barrack. The soldiers left; the wenches stayed. With their brats. The King lives in the cellar underneath. Good luck!’

  The alley was paved with irregular cobblestones and lined by old houses built from large blocks of grey stone. Formerly well-to-do people lived there, but now every house was apparently inhabited by a dozen or more poor families. Every few steps Ma Joong had to duck to avoid walking into the pieces of wet laundry hanging on bamboos sticking out of the second-floor windows. Sitting on benches out in the street, the inhabitants were drinking tea and noisily discussing their affairs. Their wives hung out of the upper windows, listening and shouting down their advice. Farther along it grew more quiet. At the corner where the barrack stood there were but few passers-by. The wooden gate of the dilapidated building was closed, and no sound came from behind the sh
uttered windows. The women there were sleeping off the night before.

  Beside the gate Ma Joong noticed a low, dark door opening. He stooped and looked inside. A steep flight of roughly-hewn stone steps went down into a cellar.

  A dank smell of refuse greeted him when he slowly descended. The dark cellar was only about ten feet broad, but it seemed more than forty feet long, stretching out the whole length of the barrack’s façade. The little light there was came from an arched window high up under the raftered ceiling, its base level with the street. And far back in the rear a spluttering candle stood on a low table made of logs. Except for a bamboo stool in front of the table, there wasn’t a stick of furniture, and there seemed to be no one about. When Ma Joong walked on towards the candle he noticed that here and there water came trickling down from the stone wall, green with mould.

  ‘Stay where you are, you!’ a thin, reedy voice sounded above Ma Joong’s head. He jumped aside and looked up. Against the iron bars of the window he vaguely saw a black bundle. Stepping up close, he saw that it was a small, incredibly old man who was sitting cross-legged in the corner of the arch. The completely bald, shining head, the long pointed nose and the scraggy neck coming out of the black rags made him closely resemble a vulture poised for swooping down on its prey. In his hands he held a long stick, ending in a wicked-looking iron hook. A pair of small, beady eyes squinted horribly at Ma Joong.

  ‘Hold it!’ he called out. ‘I want to see the King. For a bit of business advice.’

  ‘Let him pass, Cross-eye!’ It was a deep, rumbling voice from the rear of the cellar. ‘Some people even pay for advice!’

  The bird-like man in the window gestured with his stick that Ma Joong could go on. Footsteps sounded in the street outside. The small man peered through the bars with cocked head. Suddenly, with an incredibly swift movement, he brought the stick round, and stuck it outside through the iron bars. He hauled it back, plucked a mud-soiled piece of oil-cake from the hook and began to munch it contentedly. Ma Joong walked on to the table, thinking himself lucky not to have got the hook in his neck.