After they had admired the larger than life-size statue of the Goddess of Mercy in the main hall, they went to explore the buildings at the back of the compound. At last they came to a large hall where a memorial service was in progress. In front of the altar, piled with offerings, six monks were sitting on their round prayer cushions intoning prayers. Near the entrance knelt a small group of neatly dressed men and women, evidently the relatives of the deceased. Behind them stood an elderly monk, who was watching the proceedings with a bored air.
Judge Dee decided that they would have to ask about the Censor, after all. They now had looked everywhere, except in the pagoda which was hermetically closed, because formerly someone had committed suicide by jumping down from the top storey. He walked up to the elderly monk and gave him a description of the Censor.
'No, I haven't seen him, sir. And I am practically certain that no one of that description visited the temple tonight, for till the service here began I was about in the gatehouse all the time, and I wouldn't have missed a man of such striking appearance. Well, you'll kindly excuse me now, for I am supposed to supervise this memorial service. They bring in good money, you know.' Then he went on hurriedly, 'A large portion of the proceeds is used for defraying the costs of the ceremonial burning of dead beggars and vagrants who leave no relations behind and don't belong to a guild. And that is only one of the many charitable undertakings the temple engages in. Hey, that reminds me! Yesterday night they brought in a dead vagabond who looked like your friend! It wasn't him, of course, for he was clad in rags!'
The judge gave Tao Gan a startled look. He told the monk curtly:
'I am an officer of the tribunal, and the man I was to meet here is a special agent, who may have disguised himself as a beggar. I want to see the body, at once.'
The monk looked frightened. He stammered:
'It's in the mortuary, in the west wing, sir. Due to be incinerated after midnight. Not on this auspicious day, of course.' He beckoned a novice and said, 'Take these two gentlemen to the mortuary.'
The youngster led them to a small, deserted yard. On the other side stood a low, dark building, close to the high outer wall of the temple compound.
The novice pushed the heavy door open and lit the candle on the window sill. On a trestle table of plain boards were lying two human shapes, wrapped from head to feet in sheets of cheap canvas.
The novice sniffed the air with a sour face.
'Good that they'll be burned tonight!' he muttered. 'For in this hot weather...'
Judge Dee had not heard him. He lifted the end of the canvas covering the shape nearest him. The bloated face of a bearded man was revealed. He quickly covered it up again, then bared the head of the other corpse. He stood stock-still. Tao Gan grabbed the candle from the novice, came up to the table and let its light fall on the smooth, pale face. The topknot had got loose, thin strings of wet hair were clinging to the high forehead, but even in death the face retained its calm, haughty expression. Judge Dee swung round to the novice and barked:
'Get the abbot and the prior, at once! Here, give them this!'
He groped in his sleeve, and gave the astonished youngster one of his large red visiting cards, inscribed with his full name and rank. The novice scurried away. Judge Dee bent over the head of the dead man and carefully examined the skull. Righting himself, he said to Tao Gan: 'I can't find any wound, not even a bruised spot. Let me hold the candle! You have a look at the body.'
Tao Gan loosened the canvas, then took off the dead man's ragged jacket and clumsily patched trousers. Besides these he had worn nothing. Tao Gan studied the smooth-skinned, well-made body. Judge Dee looked on in silence, holding the candle high. After Tao Gan had turned the corpse over and examined the back, he shook his head.
'No,' he said, 'there are no signs of violence, no discoloured spots, no abrasions. I'll search his clothes.'
After he had covered up the corpse again, he went through the sleeves of the tattered jacket. 'What have we got here?' he exclaimed. He took from the sleeve a small cage of silver wire, about one inch square. Its side was crushed, the small door hanging loose.
'That is the cage the Censor kept his cricket in,' the judge said hoarsely. 'Is there nothing else?'
Tao Gan looked again. 'Nothing at all!’ he muttered.
Voices sounded outside. The door was pushed open by a monk who ushered in respectfully a heavily built, imposing figure in a long saffron robe. A purple stole was draped over his shoulders. As he made a low bow, the light of the candle shone on his round, closely shaved head. The prior knelt down by the abbot's side.
As Judge Dee saw by the door a group of other monks trying to peer inside, he snapped at the abbot:
'I said you and your prior, didn't I? Send all those other fellows away!'
The frightened abbot opened his mouth but brought out only incoherent sounds. It was the prior who turned round and shouted at the monks to make themselves scarce.
'Close the door!' Judge Dee ordered. And to the abbot, 'Calm yourself, man!' Pointing at the corpse, he asked, 'How did this man die?'
The abbot recollected himself. He replied in a trembling voice:
'We ... we are completely ignorant of the cause of death, Excellency! These poor men are brought here dead, we have them burned as a charitable...'
'You are supposed to know the law,' the judge cut him short. 'You are not allowed to incinerate any corpse, gratis or otherwise, without having checked the death certificate and submitted it to the tribunal for inspection.'
'But the tribunal sent the corpse here, Excellency!' the prior wailed. 'Two constables brought it last night, on a stretcher. They said it was a dead vagrant of unknown identity. I myself signed the receipt!'
'That's different,' Judge Dee said curtly. 'You two may leave now. Stay in your quarters. I may want to question you again, later tonight.'
When they had scrambled to their feet and left, the judge said to Tao Gan:
'I must know where and how the constables found him, and I also want to see the coroner's report. Strange that the constables left that silver cage in his sleeve; it's a valuable antique piece. Go to the tribunal at once, Tao Gan, and question the Prefect, his coroner, and the men who found the body. Tell them to have the body removed to the palace. Just say that the dead man was a secret investigator from the capital, sent here on my orders. I'll go back to the palace after I have had another look around here.'
VIII
When Chiao Tai's litter was set down at the side gate of the palace, it was already one hour before midnight. He had told the bearers to bring him there by a round about way, hoping that the night air would cool his brain. It had been a forlorn hope.
He found Judge Dee sitting all alone at his large desk. His chin in his cupped hands, he was studying the large city map spread out before him. When Chiao Tai had greeted him, the judge said in a tired voice:
'Sit down! We have found the Censor. Murdered.'
He told Chiao Tai about Tao Gan's talk with the blind girl, and how the clue of the Golden Bell had made them discover the Censor's dead body in the temple. Cutting short Chiao Tai's excited questions, he pursued:
'After the dead body had been brought here, I had the Governor's physician perform a thorough autopsy. He found that the Censor had been poisoned, by an insidious drug that is not mentioned in our medical books. For the only people who know how to prepare it are the Tanka, who inhabit the river boats. If administered in a large dose, the victim dies practically at once; a small dose causes only a general fatigue, but death ensues in a couple of weeks. It can only be traced by examining the condition of the throat. If the Governor's physician hadn't happened to have treated a case recently among the Tanka, he would never have traced the poison, and death would have been ascribed to a heart attack.'