The Phantom of the Temple

'All this seems immaterial to me,' Mr Woo interrupted impatiently. 'I want to know who murdered my daughter, and how.'

Judge Dee turned to the banker, Lee Mai.

'The murderer was your brother, the painter Lee Ko.'

Lee Mai's round face went pale.

'My ... my brother?' he stammered. 'I knew that he was no good... . But Heavens, a murder ...'

'Your brother,' the judge continued, 'must have fre­quented this temple for years, to study the Buddhist pictures here. Somehow or other he must have learned of the existence of a deep crypt under this altar. As you know, most larger temples have such a secret crypt, to store their valuable ritual objects during times of up­heaval, and as hide-out for the inmates. Lee Ko must have tricked Ming Ao into descending into that crypt, then told him he would let him starve there if he didn't reveal the hiding-place of the gold. This happened on the night of the sixth of the ninth month, the night Ming Ao disappeared. Four days later, on the tenth, Lee Ko opened the crypt. He had left Ming Ao there too long; the locksmith had died — without having revealed the secret. Your daughter, Mr Woo, found Lee Ko standing by the open crypt, and he threw her inside. Their bodies are still there. Please stand back, all of you! Yes, that'll do.' Judge Dee went over to the side where the headman stood, and told him curtly: 'Open the crypt!’

Again the headman and his assistant tilted the altar table. Then, with an obvious effort, they pushed it away from the wall, inch by inch. When the distance was five inches, a section of the stone floor measuring six feet square suddenly rose, rotating round an axis located along the foot of the wall, where the altar table had stood. A nauseating smell of decay rose up from the gaping dark hole.

On a sign from the judge, the headman lit a lantern that had a long thin rope attached to it. While he let it down into the crypt, the judge motioned Mr Woo to come to the rim. Together they looked down.

The perfectly smooth brick wall went down for nearly twenty feet. Deep down below lay a mass of rubbish: smaller and larger wooden boxes, a few earthenware jars, and broken candlesticks. At the left were the remains of a woman, lying on her back. The long hair lay around the skull like an aureole, bones were sticking up from the remnants of a decaying brown robe. On the other side, close to the wall, were the remains of a man, lying face down, his arms flung outward. Through the holes in the torn, mould-covered sleeves pieces of gold were sparkling in the lantern's light.

'I went down there with a rope-ladder,' Judge Dee spoke. His voice came muffled through the neckcloth he had pulled up over his nose and mouth. 'In the wall directly above Ming Ao's body there is a cleverly made secret wall-safe. In the last, terrible moments Ming Ao spent here he opened this safe and, half-crazed by hunger and thirst, began to take out the gold bars he had hidden there and stuff them into his sleeves. Then he fell down, dead. On top of the rest of the gold, which had dropped onto the floor. Before the murderer had put Ming Ao in the crypt, he had, of course, examined it carefully, as the most obvious place for hiding the gold. But he had failed to locate the secret wall-safe. And when he opened the crypt and found Ming Ao dead, he didn't see the gold. That we can see it now from up here is because Ming Ao's gown has decayed and been eaten by worms. So, the murderer didn't know that the gold was here, and he began a long and fruitless search of the temple.'

Mr Woo stepped back, his face ashen.

'Where is the cruel fiend who did my poor daughter to death?' he asked hoarsely.

Judge Dee nodded at the headman. He left the hall by the narrow back door. Then the judge pointed at the trap door.

'As you see, this trap door is made of extremely thick wooden logs. They are covered with a layer of cement, and the stone slabs are added on top of that. The door is so heavy that, when closed, there is no hollow sound even when one stamps one's foot on it. At the other end there's a counterweight, underground outside. Two wedges hold it on balance. If the altar table is tilted, then pushed forward in a line perfectly parallel to the wall, the wedges are released. A very clever piece of workmanship.'

The headman came inside with a tall man. Ma Joong followed close behind.

As soon as the man saw the open crypt and the people standing there, he covered his face with his arm. Too late.

'Yang!' Mrs Woo cried out. 'What—'

The man swung round, but Ma Joong grabbed him and pinned his arms down in a wrestler's lock. The headman put him in chains.

Yang's tall body sagged. He remained standing there with downcast eyes, his face a deadly pale.

'Where's my brother?' Lee Mai shouted.

'Your brother is dead, Mr Lee,' the judge said softly. 'He committed two murders, and was murdered himself in turn.' He gave the headman a peremptory sign. Together with the senior constable, he moved the table back to its original place against the wall. Slowly the trap door closed again. Judge Dee resumed his place in front of the altar table.

'You are entitled to hear the full story, Mr Lee. I take up the thread of my narrative. Since your brother is dead, part of what I am going to say is conjecture. But Yang Mou-te will fill in the gaps. Well, after Lee Ko had killed Ming Ao and Miss Jade, he began to search the temple. Since he knew that all kinds of riff-raff frequented it at night and since his search would have to include also the garden, he needed help. So he took Yang in his service. How much did Lee Ko tell you, Yang?'

The chained man looked up with dazed eyes.

'He said that the monks had hidden a treasure there,' he mumbled. 'I ... I suspected there was more to it. I found in Lee's bedroom notes of calculation on the value of fifty gold bars, and ...'

'And you thought you could do better for yourself than the share Lee had promised you,' Judge Dee broke in upon his words. 'You hired the professional bully Seng-san, and together you worked out a plan for luring Lee to the temple and murdering him. Seng-san strangled Lee from behind. Then you executed the second phase of your fiendish plan, Yang. You waited till Seng-san had choked the life out of Lee, and stood bent over his victim. Then you plunged your knife into Seng-san's back. Why did you wait weeks on end before murdering Lee? Then why did you try twice to murder my lieutenant on two successive nights? Why didn't you wait a few days, till we had given up the search of the temple? Speak up, Yang!'

Yang's lips moved, but no sound came forth.

'Tell the truth!' the judge barked.

'Last week ... I went through Lee's papers again when he was out. He used to go to the old bookshops, nearly every day. ... At last he found what he was looking for. A collection of letters, written by an abbot of the temple, more than a hundred years ago. One letter dealt with the building of a secret wall-safe, down in the crypt. When Lee bought a rope-ladder ... I had to be very quick, for I couldn't impersonate Lee longer than a few days at most. I had to get the gold quickly, leave here ...'

'Tomorrow you shall render a full account of your crimes in court,' Judge Dee interrupted. 'Take the prisoner away, headman, and let six guards convey him to jail! Mr Woo, yesterday you asked me what new clues to your daughter's disappearance prompted me to issue a proclamation. I shall now answer your question. There came into my hands a note signed with your daughter's name, stating that she was being kept captive here, and begging someone to rescue her. It was enclosed in an antique ebony box. The cover of that box was decorated with a disc of green jade, carved into the shape of a stylized, archaic form of the character for "long life". Someone had scratched at one side of that character the word "entrance" and at the other side the word "below". Now it so happens that the shape of that character bears a close resemblance to the floor-plan of this very temple. The oblong space in the centre suggests the main hall, the dented lines beside it the cells of the monks, the two squares the two towers. The box was evidently chosen because of this resemblance; it supplemented the infor­mation of the message. The message stated the time, the box the place. And the place was indicated exactly by the word "below" scratched beside the back wall of the halclass="underline" it clearly pointed to a crypt, under the altar.'