The Phantom of the Temple

'The narrow pathway along the wall on the right leads to the small new temple, the so-called Hermitage, sir,' explained the headman. 'The Abbess lives there, with one maidservant. I haven't asked them yet whether they heard or saw anything last night.'

'I want to see the scene of the crime first,' Judge Dee told him. 'Lead the way!’

The paved front courtyard was overgrown with weeds and the walls were crumbling here and there, but the temple's main hall with its high roof, flanked by two three-storeyed towers, had withstood the ravages of time intact.

'This outlandish architecture,' the judge remarked to Sergeant Hoong, 'can of course never come near the per­fection of ours. I have to admit, however, that from a technical point of view the Indian builders did a good job. Those two towers are absolutely symmetrical. I gather that this temple was built three hundred years ago, and it is still in a remarkably good state of repair. Where did you find Ah-liu, headman?'

The headman took them to the edge of the wilderness on the left of the courtyard. On the right was a piece of wasteland, strewn with large boulders. The judge noticed that it was slightly cooler here than down in the city. The warm air was filled with the incessant strident chirp­ing of cicadas.

'This wilderness was once an extensive, well-kept garden, Your Honour,' the headman explained. 'Now it's a mass of tangled vegetation where even the scoundrels who gather in the temple and courtyard don't dare to go. It is said that there are many poisonous snakes.' Pointing to an old oak tree, he went on: 'The accused was lying under that tree, sir, his head resting on the raised root. My conjecture is that he meant to take to his heels after he had murdered Seng-san. But he stumbled in the dark over that tree root. Drunk as he was, the fall knocked him out completely,'

'I see. Let's go inside.'

While the constables were pushing the six-fold lattice doors of the main hall open, fragments of mouldering wood came down on their heads. Judge Dee went up the three broad stone stairs, stepped over the high threshold, and looked curiously at the cavernous, half-dark hall. On the right and left a row of six heavy stone pillars sup­ported the thick rafters high above, from which dust-laden cobwebs hung down like so many grey pennons. At the far end, against the back wall, the judge saw vaguely an altar table of solid ebony, more than twelve feet long and about five feet high. In the side wall was a small narrow door, and above it, high up in the wall, a square window, boarded up with planks. Pointing at the win­dow, Judge Dee asked, 'Can't your men open that, head­man? It's too dark in here!'

At a sign from the headman two constables went to a niche in the wall behind the left row of pillars. They took two halberds from it. With those they set to work on the boarded-up window. While they were busy, Judge Dee walked on to the centre of the hall and silently surveyed it, slowly caressing his long sidewhiskers. The clammy, oppressive air seemed to clog up his lungs. Except for the holes bored at regular intervals in the wall for placing burning torches in, there was nothing left to suggest the orgies that had taken place there years ago, yet the hall emanated a subtle atmosphere of evil. Suddenly the judge had the uncanny feeling that unseen eyes were fixing him with a hostile stare.

'They say that formerly the walls were hung with large coloured pictures, Your Honour,' the headman spoke up beside him. 'Of naked gods and goddesses, and—'

'I am not interested in hearsay!’ Judge Dee snapped. Seeing the leer freeze on the headman's face, he asked, more friendly, 'Where do you think those ashes on the floor behind the pillars come from, headman?'

'In winter, Your Honour, the scum that frequent this place burn faggots here. They come to stay here over­night, especially during the cold months, for the thick walls protect them against rain and snow.'

'The heap of ashes here in the centre looks quite recent, though,' the judge remarked. The ashes were lying in a shallow round cavity, hollowed out in one of the flag­stones. Around the cavity a wreath of lotus petals had been carved into the stone. The judge noticed that this particular flagstone was located in the exact centre of the floor. The eight flags surrounding it were marked by in­cised letters of a foreign script.

The boards that had covered the window at the back of the hall fell down with a thud. Two black shapes hurtled down from the rafters. One came flapping past Judge Dee's head with an eerie, piercing screech. Then the bats made for the dark cavity over the front entrance.

Sergeant Hoong had been studying the floor in front of the altar table. He righted himself and said, 'Now that we have better light, sir, you can see clearly that there was a veritable pool of blood here. But the thick layer of dust and refuse has absorbed it. And there are so many confused footprints all over that it's hard to draw any conclusions.'

Judge Dee went over to him and examined the floor. 'No, Heaven knows what happened here! Headman, get your men around me!' When the constables were stand­ing in a half-circle in front of him, the judge resumed, 'I have information to the effect that, before or after the murder, a large wooden box was concealed inside this temple, or in the grounds outside. We shall begin inside.