The Phantom of the Temple

'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 shuttered 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 faзade. 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.