"You'd better untruss him again!" Judge Dee said wryly. "He's not our man. I was wrong about him all along. His real name is Liu, he and his sister were members of a gang of vagabonds. But he also works on his own, sometimes as a Taoist mendicant monk, sometimes as an actor. He is probably a rough-and-ready rascal, but he came here for a laudable purpose, namely to avenge the murder of his sister. When you have freed him, come and sit down with me on the landing. I am tired."
He turned round and walked back to the landing, leaving Tao Gan standing there dumbfounded. Judge Dee sat down on the wooden bench and let his head lean back against the wall.
When Tao Gan came, the Judge pointed to the place by his side. Sitting there together in the semi-darkness, he told Tao Gan about his discovery of the secret room and his conversation with Sun Ming. He said in conclusion: "I don't blame myself for not realizing earlier that I had mistaken Sun's round head with smooth silvery hair for that of a soldier wearing a close-fitting iron helmet. There was no reason for connecting a man of Sun's eminence and supposed integrity with such sordid crimes. But I ought to have begun suspecting him as soon as True Wisdom admitted his guilt, and thereby confirmed that there had indeed been irregularities with women in this monastery."
Tao Gan looked puzzled. After a while he asked: "Why should that have aroused suspicions regarding Master Sun, sir?"
"I ought then to have realized, Tao Gan, that a man of Sun's intelligence and experience could not have failed to notice that queer things were going on here. I should have suspected him all the more since, when I talked with him just after True Wisdom's death, Sun stressed that he always stayed in his library and used to keep himself aloof from all that went on in the monastery. I should have remembered then that True Wisdom had assured me during our first interview that Sun, on the contrary, had always shown a lively interest in all the affairs of the monastery. And that should have suggested to me at once that Sun was implicated in the murders, and that the abbot wanted to denounce him as an accomplice. And that, therefore, Sun pushed him from the landing. When directly thereafter we were drinking tea with Tsung Lee in the temple hall, I had a vague feeling that there was something wrong somewhere, but I failed to discover the truth. I needed a broken saucer to see all the facts in their proper connection!"
The judge heaved a deep sigh, and slowly shook his head. Then he yawned and continued: "Taoism penetrates deep into the mysteries of life and death, but its abstruse knowledge may inspire that evil, inhuman pride that turns a man into a cruel fiend. And its profound philosophy about balancing the male and female elements may degenerate to those unspeakable rites with women. The question is, Tao Gan, whether we are meant to discover the mystery of life, and whether that discovery would make us happier. Taoism has many elevated thoughts; it teaches us to requite good with good, and bad also with good. But the instruction to requite bad with good belongs to a better age than we are living in now, Tao Gan! It's a dream of the future, a beautiful dream — yet only a dream. I prefer to keep to the practical wisdom of our Master Confucius, who teaches us our simple, everyday duties to our fellow-men and to our society. And to requite good with good, and bad with justice!" After a while he resumed: "Of course it would be foolish to ignore entirely the existence of mysterious, supernatural phenomena. Yet most occurrences which we consider as such prove in the end to have a perfectly natural explanation. When I was in the passage where you have now deposited Mo, I heard my name whispered. I remembered the weird story about the ghosts of the slaughtered people, and thought that it was a warning that I was about to die. However, when thereafter I entered the store-room, I found there Mo Mo-te and another monk, a confederate of his, who apparently had helped him to change from his warrior's costume into an old monk's cowl they had taken from a box there. I now realize that those two must have been talking about me, and a queer effect of the echo made me overhear them in the next corridor."
"That's right!" a hoarse voice spoke up. "My friend said I should report my sister's murder to you. But I know better. You smug officials won't lift a finger for us, the common people!"
The hulking shape of Mo Mo-te stood before them.
Judge Dee looked up at the threatening figure.
"You ought to have followed your friend's advice," he said evenly. "You would have saved yourself much trouble. And me too."
Mo scowled at him, fingering the red weal round his throat. Then he stepped up close to the judge. Bending over him he growled: "Who killed my sister?"
"I found the murderer," Judge Dee replied curtly. "He confessed, and I sentenced him to death. Your sister has been avenged. That's all you need to know."
Quick as lightning Mo pulled a long knife from his bosom. Keeping it poised expertly at Judge Dee's throat, he hissed: "Tell me or you are done for! It's me who shall kill her murderer! I am her brother. And what are you, eh?"
Judge Dee folded his arms in his sleeves. Looking up at Mo with his burning eyes he said slowly: "I represent the law, Mo. It's I who take vengeance." Lowering his gaze he added in a voice that was suddenly utterly tired: "And it is I who shall answer for it."
He closed his eyes and leaned his head against the wall again.
Mo glared at Judge Dee's pale, impassive face. His large hand tightened on the hilt of the knife until the knuckles stood out white. Sweat began to pearl on his low forehead; his breathing came heavily. Tao Gan looked tensely at the hand with the knife.
Then Mo averted his blazing eyes. He gave Tao Gan a sombre glance, put the knife back in his bosom and said suddenly: "Then I have nothing to seek here any more."
He turned around and walked unsteadily to the stairs.
After a while Judge Dee opened his eyes. He said in a toneless voice: "Forget all I told you about Sun Ming and his crimes, Tao Gan. We shall keep to the story that it was the abbot and Mrs. Pao who maltreated and killed those three girls and tortured Miss Kang. Sun died by an unfortunate accident. He is survived by three sons and we must not wantonly destroy other people's lives. Too many already do their utmost to destroy their own, all by themselves!"
For a long time the judge and his lieutenant sat there together, silently listening to the chant that came up to them from the temple hall below, punctuated by beats on a wooden gong. The monks at the abbot's bier were still reciting the prayers for the dead. Judge Dee could make out the words of the refrain, repeated with monotonous insistence:
To die is to return home
Returning home to one's father's house,
The drop that regains the stream,
The large stream that flows on for ever.
At last Judge Dee rose. He said: "Go now to the store-room and fix the secret lock so that it can't work. The secret room contains the old statue of the naked woman, and I shall forbid having naked woman exposed in the Gallery of Horrors, anyway. That secret room shall never again tempt anyone to commit deeds of evil! We'll meet after breakfast!"
He went with Tao Gan as far as the first window in the corridor, where he had deposited Sun's cloak as evidence of the accident. While Tao Gan went on, he opened the shutters wide.
All was quiet deep down below. Suddenly a dark shape swooped down into the space between the two buildings, followed by another. The mountain vultures had discovered prey.
Judge Dee went back to the landing and descended the stairs leading down to the temple hall. When he stepped out on the open platform in front of the temple gate, he looked up. The red rays of dawn were streaking the grey sky.
He went down the broad steps, then headed for the main entrance of the east wing. While passing the high gate that closed off the well between the east wing and the building he had just left, he suddenly stood still. He stared at a hand that held on to the top of the gate with blood-stained, broken fingers. For one brief moment he thought that Sun was hanging there on the other side, in a last frantic attempt to escape. But then a vulture came down, picked up the hand and flew away towards the mountains.