"It's a vexing puzzle!" the judge muttered. "Suppose that Miss Ou-yang or Miss Pao was running away from Mo Mo-te when we met her in the corridor, and that he is a dangerous maniac. That would fit in with the weird scene I saw through the window. The man I saw must have been Mo Mo-te, but who was the girl he was assaulting? We must find out whether there are other women staying in this monastery besides the ones we know about."
"I didn't dare to inquire about a mutilated woman without your orders, sir," Tao Gan said. "But I don't think that there are any other women staying here besides Mrs. Kuan and the two actresses, and Mrs. Pao with her daughter, of course."
"Don't forget that we have seen only a very small part of this monastery," the judge said. "Heaven knows what goes on in the section forbidden to outsiders! And we don't even have a map of the place! Well, I'll go and call on Master Sun now. You go back to the actors. When the elusive Mo Mo-te turns up, you stick to him like a leech, and go to the banquet with him. I'll see you there later."
In the corridor a novice stood waiting for the judge.
"Do we have to go outside to reach the west tower?" Judge Dee asked. The rain was still clattering against the shutters, he didn't like to get his ceremonial robe wet.
"Oh no, sir!" the novice replied. "We'll go to the west wing by way of the passage over the temple hall."
"More stairs!" the judge muttered.
VIII
They made the now familiar journey to the landing over the temple-nave. The novice took the passage opposite the one that led to the store-room. It was a long, straight corridor, lit by only one broken lantern.
While walking behind the novice, Judge Dee suddenly had the uncomfortable feeling that someone was watching him from behind. He halted in his steps and looked over his shoulder. He saw something dark flit past the entrance at the far end of the passage. It could have been a man in a grey robe. As he walked on, he asked the novice: "Do the monks often use this passage too?"
"Oh no, sir! I only took it because it saves us from going outside in the rain. All people who have business in the west tower go up there by the spiral staircase, near the portal in front of the refectory."
When they had arrived in the small square hall in the west side of the building, the judge stood still in order to orientate himself.
"Where does that lead to?" he asked, pointing at a narrow door on his right.
"It gives access to the Gallery of Horrors, sir, in the left wing of the central court, behind the temple. But we novices are not allowed to go in there."
"I would have thought that viewing that gallery would be a good deterrent to committing sins!" Judge Dee remarked. He knew that every larger Taoist monastery had a gallery where the punishments meted out to sinners in the Ten Taoist Hells were painted in lurid detail on the wall, or plastically represented by statues moulded in clay or sculpted in wood.
As they ascended a few steps on their left, the novice warned: "You'll have to be careful sir! The balustrade of the landing in front of the Master's room is being repaired. Please keep close to me!"
When he was standing on the platform in front of a high, red-lacquered door, Judge Dee saw that part of the balustrade was indeed missing. He looked down into the dark shaft of the staircase. It seemed very deep.
"These are the stairs I mentioned just now. They lead down to the west wing," the novice explained. "They come out in front of the refectory, three floors down."
Judge Dee gave him his large red visiting card. The novice knocked on the door.
A booming voice told them to come in.
In the brilliant light of four high silver candelabra a tall man sat reading at a huge desk, piled with books and papers. The novice bowed deeply and placed the visiting card on the table. Master Sun glanced at it, then quickly got up and came forward to meet the judge.
"So you are the magistrate of our district!" he said in a deep, sonorous voice. "Welcome to the Monastery of the Morning Clouds, Dee!"
Judge Dee bowed, his arms respectfully folded in his wide sleeves. "This person had never dared to hope, sir," he said, "that a mishap on the road would provide the long looked-for opportunity of paying my respects to such an eminent person."
"Let's dispense with all empty formality, Dee!" Sun said jovially. "Sit down here in front of my desk while I put these papers in order." As he resumed his seat in the armchair behind his desk, he said to the novice who had poured out two cups of tea: "Thank you, my boy, you may go now. I'll look after the guest myself."
While sipping the fragrant jasmine tea the judge looked at his host as he was quickly sorting out the papers before him. He was as tall as the judge, but more heavily built. His thick neck was half buried in his broad, bulging shoulders. Judge Dee knew the Master must be nearly sixty, but his rosy, round face didn't show a single wrinkle. A short, grey ringbeard grew round his chin, his silvery grey hair was combed back straight from the broad forehead and plastered to his large, round head. Having assumed the status of Taoist recluse, the Master wore no cap. He wore his moustache trimmed short, but he had thick, tufted eyebrows. Everything about him indicated that this was a remarkable personality.
Judge Dee read some of the scrolls inscribed with Taoist texts that covered the walls. Then Sun pushed the sorted-out papers away. Fixing the judge with his piercing eyes he asked: "You referred to a mishap on the road. Nothing serious, I hope?"
"Oh no, sir! I stayed for two weeks in the capital, and early this morning left there to go back to Han-yuan, in a tilt cart. We had hoped to be home before the evening meal. But shortly after we had crossed the district frontier, the weather got worse, and when we were up in the mountains here, the axle broke. Therefore I had to ask for shelter in this monastery. We'll leave tomorrow morning. I am told these storms don't last long."
"Bad luck for you, good luck for me!" Sun said with a smile. "I always enjoy talking with capable young officials. You should have come here earlier, Dee! This monastery is within your jurisdiction."
"I have been very remiss, sir!" the judge said hastily. "The fact is that there was some trouble in Han-yuan, and…"
"I heard all about it!" Sun interrupted him. "You did good work there, Dee. Prevented a major disturbance of the peace, in fact."
The judge acknowledged the compliment with a bow. He said:
"I shall certainly come back here soon, in order to be further instructed by Your Excellency." Since this learned and experienced high official was apparently in a friendly mood, he thought he ought to try to settle at least one aspect of the problem of the mutilated naked woman. After a momentary hesitation he resumed: "Might I take the liberty of consulting Your Excellency about a curious experience I had here just now?"
"By all means! What happened, and where?"
Judge Dee Visits an Exalted Person
"As a matter of fact," Judge Dee said, somewhat embarrassed, "I don't know what happened exactly. When I went up to the quarters assigned to me, I saw for a brief moment a scene that must have happened more than a hundred years ago, when the soldiers slaughtered the rebels here. Are such things possible?"
Sun leaned back in his armchair. He said gravely: "I wouldn't call it impossible, Dee. Doesn't it often happen that upon entering an empty room you definitely know that someone had been there a few moments before? You can't explain that, it's just a feeling. It means that the person who was there before you left something of himself behind. Yet he did nothing special there, perhaps he just looked at a book or wrote a letter. Now suppose that the same man died a violent death in that room. It is only to be expected that the terrible emotion of that moment impregnated the atmosphere of that room, and so deeply, too, that it lingers on for years. If a hyper-sensitive person, or a person who has become hypersensitive because he is very tired, happens to enter there, he may well perceive that imprint. Don't you think that some such reasoning might explain what you saw, Dee?"