Tao Gan sat deep in thought, winding and unwinding on his forefinger the three long hairs that sprouted from his left cheek. At last he said:
"Miss Ting told you that Mo Mo-te is familiar with the monastery. Could he perhaps be really a vagrant Taoist monk? Those fellows roam all over the Empire, visiting famous Taoist sites and engaging in all kinds of mischief on the side. Since they don't shave their heads like the Buddhists, they can easily act the part of laymen. Mo Mo-te may have visited this monastery before. Probably he became involved in the deaths of one or more of the three girls. The one-armed woman you saw may be another of his victims. Suppose he now came back disguised as an actor, either to silence the one-armed girl, or to blackmail eventual accomplices here?"
"There's much to what you say, Tao Gan," Judge Dee said pensively. "It agrees with a vague theory I had been trying to formulate myself. It reminds me of your remark about one cover being missing at the banquet. That might mean that Mo has resumed his Taoist garb, and mixed with the monks. If he had an accomplice here, he could easily manage that. The inhabitants of the monastery saw him wearing a mask most of the time, or with his face painted. That would also explain why we can't find him, and why his room is completely empty, as I saw just now. And if it was he who overheard my talk with the abbot, he might well want me out of the way."
"But murdering a magistrate is no small undertaking!" Tao Gan remarked.
"That's exactly why Mo is our most likely suspect. I don't think that anyone living in this monastery would dare to do that. Everybody knows that the murder of an Imperial official sets our whole administrative machine into motion, and this monastery in no time would be swarming with investigators, police-officers and special agents who would literally leave no brick unturned to find the criminal. But Mo is an outsider. He'll disappear as soon as he has done whatever he came to do, and little does he care what happens afterwards to the monastery and its inmates!"
Tao Gan nodded his agreement. After a while he spoke: "We must also keep in mind another possibility, sir. You told me that at the banquet you made inquiries regarding the death of the former abbot. Now suppose there had really been something wrong about the old fellow's demise, and that someone who had been concerned in that crime overheard your questions. Isn't it then to be expected that he would want to prevent you at all cost from initiating an investigation?"
"Impossible! I tell you that more than a dozen people were present when the old abbot died. I said clearly to the abbot that I didn't believe that…" He suddenly broke off. Then he went on slowly: "Yes, you are perfectly right! I also said that signs of violence can often be detected even on an embalmed corpse. Someone may have heard that, and wrongly concluded that I was thinking of having an autopsy conducted." He paused. Then he hit his fist on the table and muttered: "Tsung must tell me all the details about the old abbot's death! Where can we find that confounded poet?"
"When I left Kuan Lai, they were still drinking happily. Probably Tsung Lee is still there. The office paid the actors their fee tonight, and these people like to keep late hours!"
"Good, let's go there." Getting up, the judge added: "Either that blow on my head, or the couple of hours of enforced rest after it, must have cured my cold! My head is clear now and I have got rid of that feverish feeling. What about you, though?"
"Oh," Tao Gan said with his thin smile, "I am all right! I never sleep much. I usually pass the night dozing a bit and thinking about this and that."
Judge Dee gave his assistant a curious look as the elderly man carefully doused the candle with his nimble fingers. During the year this strange, sad man had been working for him as one of his assistants he had grown rather fond of him. He wondered what he could be thinking of at night. He opened the door.
That same moment he heard the rustling of silk. A dark shape hurried away through the corridor.
"You guard the stairs!" he barked at Tao Gan. He rushed towards the corner round which the unknown listener had disappeared.
Tao Gan ran quickly to the staircase, taking a roll of black waxed thread from his sleeve. As he was stringing it across the stairs, a foot above the first step, he muttered with a sly smile: "Oh dear, oh dear! If our visitor comes rushing along here I am afraid he'll have a very bad fall!"
Just when he had fastened both ends to the bannister, the judge came back.
"No use!" he said bitterly. "There's a narrow staircase on the other side of the building!"
"What did he look like, sir?"
"I only caught a glimpse of him when I stepped outside. He was round the corner like a flash, and when I got there, he was nowhere to be seen. But it was the same villain who attacked me!"
"How does Your Honour know that?" Tao Gan asked eagerly.
"He left behind a whiff of that same sweet perfume I noticed just before I was knocked down," the judge replied. He tugged at his beard, then said angrily: "Look here, I am sick and tired of this game of hide and seek! We must do something quickly, because that rascal may have overheard everything we said just now. We'll first go to Kuan's room. If Tsung isn't there, I'll go straight to Master Sun and rouse him. We'll organize a posse to search every nook and cranny of this place, forbidden to visitors or not! Come along!"
Upon entering the actors' dressing room they found only the director and Tsung Lee. The table bore an impressive array of empty wine jars. Kuan had passed out. He was lying back in his armchair snoring loudly. Tsung Lee sat hunched over the table, aimlessly drawing figures with his forefinger in the spilt wine. He would have got up when he saw the judge enter, but the latter said curtly: "Remain seated!"
Taking the chair next to the young man he went on harshly: "Listen you! An attempt on my life was made. It may be connected with your talking about the former abbot's death. I refuse to be made to run around in circles any longer. I want to hear here and now everything you know about that affair. Speak up!"
Tsung Lee passed his hand over his face. The unexpected arrival of the judge and his man, and the harsh address, seemed to have sobered him somewhat. He looked unhappily at the judge, cleared his throat and said hesitantly:
"It's an old story, sir, I really don't know…"
"Stop beating about the bush!" Judge Dee barked. And to Tao Gan: "See whether these two tipplers have left anything in those jars and pour me a cup. It'll help me to stay awake!"
The poet looked wistfully at the cup Tao Gan was filling, but the thin man made no move to include him. He sighed and began: "You must know that my father was a close friend of Jade Mirror, the former abbot. He often visited this monastery, and they corresponded regularly with each other. In his last letter the abbot wrote that he didn't trust True Wisdom, the present abbot, who was then prior here. Jade Mirror hinted vaguely at irregularities with girls who had come to stay here to be initiated, and…"
"What kind of irregularities?" the judge interrupted sharply.
"He didn't express himself clearly, sir. It seems he suspected that monks tempted those girls to take part in some sort of secret rites, a kind of religious orgies, you know. And he thought apparently that the prior connived at those goings on. He also wrote that he had discovered that the prior secretly had planted nightshade in a hidden corner of the garden. That made Jade Mirror suspect that he was planning to poison somebody."
Judge Dee sat down his wine beaker hard on the table. He asked angrily: "Why in Heaven's name weren't those things reported to the magistrate? How can we acquit ourselves of our duties when people keep things hidden from us or tell only half-truths?"