The Phantom of the Temple

In several places the mouldering wooden boards that covered the brick wall had been torn down, disclosing an intervening space of about two inches.

'I don't understand why ...' the sergeant began, per­plexed.

'I do,' the judge interrupted gruffly. 'You inspect the staircase and the two floors above, men. Come along, Sergeant! We'll climb up to the top, to get some fresh air!'

They went up the creaking stairs, carefully stepping round the holes that gaped where a mouldering step had dropped out.

A narrow balcony went around the tower's top floor, under the overhanging eaves of the pointed roof. Judge Dee stood at the low balustrade. Folding his hands in his wide sleeves, he stared at the mass of green treetops be­low. After a while he turned to the sergeant and said, with a smile:

'Sorry that I was so short with you downstairs, Hoong. This is really a most vexing case. Now we have obtained our first clue, but that seems to have no bearing at all upon our murder! This temple was searched, and very thoroughly too. But not for a place to hide a body and a severed head, and not yesterday, but some time ago. The object of the search was something small, not larger than a few inches square, I'd say.'

The sergeant nodded slowly. Then he asked, 'How do you know that the object they were looking for was so small, sir?'

'Well, when the searcher had lifted the tiles in the first cell, and found that the layer of earth underneath was only five or six inches thick, he examined the floor of every other cell, hoping to find something buried there. Then he went on to search the empty space behind the wainscoting, and that is only a few inches from the brick wall, as you saw just now.' He thought a few moments, then resumed: 'I also think that the search was con­ducted independently by two different persons. One had much experience in this work; he tried to cover up his searching by carefully replacing the tiles. The other didn't care, he just threw the discarded tiles into a corner, and tore down the wainscoting.'

'You said that this search for a hidden object has no bearing on our case, sir. But we know that Seng-san used to frequent this temple. There might be a link between the murder and the search, even though the search took place long before the murder was com­mitted.'

'Yes, you are right, Hoong! That's a possibility we must seriously consider. Perhaps Seng-san and the other man were murdered because they found what a second party had been looking for in vain!’ He considered for a while, stroking his long beard. 'As to our missing body and severed head, we won't find those inside. You'll have noticed that there isn't a drop of blood anywhere, nor any signs of blood having been wiped up.' He pointed at the treetops below. 'The obvious place to look for those remains is in that wilderness there. Quite a job, for from here you can see clearly how large the temple grounds are. Well, we'd better go down again.'

The three constables who had been inspecting the floors below reported that they had found no traces of a search having been conducted there. The walls had no wains­coting, and the bricks had not been tampered with.

The headman was standing in the hall, wiping his dirt-smeared, moist face with his neckcloth. His men were standing around him, talking in whispers.

'Someone has been tampering with the floors and the walls, sir,' he reported with a crestfallen look. 'But we didn't find any sign of a large box.'

'It must have been buried somewhere in the garden, headman. By the way, where does that narrow door near the altar over there lead to? I saw no back gate in the surrounding wall when I was standing on the top floor of the west tower.'

'The door leads to the narrow space behind the hall, Your Honour. Formerly there was a gate in the wall, but it has been bricked up for many years.'

'All right. Take all your men to the garden. Look for a spot where some digging has been done recently. In the meantime we shall pay a visit to the Hermitage, Sergeant.'

While crossing the front yard, Judge Dee said, 'The murderer must have had an accomplice, Hoong. To drag Seng-san's body all the way outside, smear blood on Ah-liu's jacket, then bury the body and the other man's head somewhere in that dense wilderness — that isn't exactly a one-man job! Two murderers, and no motive! I don't like this at all, Hoong.'

They passed through the triple gate and took the foot­path running along the front of the temple's outer wall.

Judge Dee resumed: 'In times of political unrest, Buddhist monks often bury golden statues and other valuable objects of worship in order to prevent their being stolen. If there should be such a buried treasure in this deserted temple, then we would have a sound motive. The only trouble is that I have never heard a buried treasure mentioned in connection with this particular place!'

'Perhaps someone happened to discover a note about that in some old, forgotten record, sir.'

'Yes, there's a lot in that, Hoong! Suppose that the man then engaged three or four scoundrels to help him to make a secret search for the hidden treasure? If Seng-san and the other man were among them, and tried to keep the whole loot for themselves, that would give the others a good motive for murdering them. This theory would establish a logical link between the search and the murders.'