The Phantom of the Temple

Judge Dee looked down intently on Seng-san's headless body, which had been laid out on the trestle table in the mortuary. The judge was dressed in his nightrobe, his hair bound up with a piece of cloth. Ma Joong, his clothes mud-stained and torn, stood on the other side of the table, holding a large candlestick.

It was an hour after midnight. The Abbess had left as soon as the dinner was over. Afterwards the judge had played several games of dominoes with his three wives, then he had retired with his First Lady. In her bedroom they had drunk a few cups of tea, talking leisurely about their twenty years of married life, then they had gone to sleep. He had been awakened by the insistent knocking of the housemaster, who had informed the chambermaid in attendance that Ma Joong had arrived with an urgent message. Ma Joong had taken the judge to the mortuary at once, and reported on how he had made his discovery.

After a long silence, Judge Dee looked up.

'So that's why Seng-san's head didn't show the symp­toms of strangulation,' he remarked. 'He was killed by a knife-thrust in his back. It was the other victim who was strangled. Have you any idea how your prospective murderer followed you, Ma Joong?'

'Our headman, the stupid ass, failed to tell young Fang and the other constable about the second approach to the temple, from the rear. And I am just as stupid,' he added bitterly, 'for I ought to have looked behind the wall before going down into the well. There's a gap in the wall, and from there the scoundrel must have been fol­lowing my movements. He probably was in the main hall when I came in, for I think I heard the small back door by the altar table close; but of that I am not sure. While the constables were busy hauling the body up out of the well, I inspected the rear of the temple compound and found that there's a path along the outside of the garden wall. The murderer must have walked along that path to the gap. He can't have followed me through the garden, for then I would have spotted him. Of that I am abso­lutely sure.'

'You also mentioned having seen a white shape.'

'Well,' Ma Joong said, a little self-consciously, 'that must have been a trick of the moonlight after all, sir. Spooks don't throw blocks of masonry about!’

Bending over the corpse, Judge Dee studied the intri­cate tattooing.

'The back is badly bruised by the bricks your assailant threw down the well,' he said. 'Seng-san was evidently a very superstitious man, like most of his ilk. Below the tiger mask he had a pair of mandarin ducks tattooed, the symbol of constancy in love. Under the one he put his own name, under the other — Heavens, hold the light nearer, Ma Joong!' The judge pointed at a smaller blue design that ran across the small of the back. 'Look! That's the profile of the deserted temple! Pity that the skin is torn by a brick. But I can still make out the four characters tattooed underneath: "much gold and much happiness".'

Judge Dee righted himself.

'Now we know why the murderer had to switch the corpses, Ma Joong! The motive of the crime was tattooed on Seng-san's back! Seng-san was after gold hidden in the temple. And the murderer too.'

'I questioned a fellow down town tonight who said he thought that Seng-san was blackmailing someone, sir.' Ma Joong outlined his theory about incriminating papers being hidden in the temple, and wound up: 'In that case, "gold" would not refer to a hidden treasure but to the money Seng-san was hoping to extort from his victim.'

'That's a possibility we must certainly keep in mind. It's a complicated case, Ma Joong! But at least we can eliminate the theory that a foreign barbarian was con­cerned in the murder. For we know now that Seng-san was killed by a knife-thrust in his back, and that the other man was strangled. To sever their heads after they were dead did not require any special skill in handling that Tartar axe.' The judge thought for a while, then added: 'Curious that the murderer didn't throw the severed head of the other victim into the well too. There was only a bundle of clothes, you say?'

'Yes sir. I put it over there, in the corner.'

'Good. We shall take those clothes to my study. Lock this door behind you, Ma Joong.'

Their footsteps sounded hollowly in the deserted corri­dor of the chancery. While they were walking along the judge asked, 'Who knows about your discovery of the body, Ma Joong?'

'Nobody but Fang and the other constable, sir. I ex­plained to them that no one in the tribunal must know about my find. We carried the body here wrapped up in a blanket, and I told the guards it was the remains of a vagabond we found in the woods.'

'Very good. And the longer the murderer thinks he did indeed kill you the better. Tomorrow very early you and Fang had better cremate Seng-san's body, together with his severed head. He apparently was a mean scoundrel, but he's entitled to enter the other world a whole man.'

Once in his private office, Judge Dee sat down heavily in his arm chair. His lieutenant lit the candle on the desk from the one he was carrying and sat down too. 'By the way, sir,' he said, 'when I entered the temple hall tonight, there was an awful smell there that reminded me of the stench of decay in the house of that dreadful woman Tala.'