"I studied a sketch map my father once made, Your Honour. I know the way, but I also know that all doors in the corridors leading there are kept securely locked!"
"My assistant will take care of that," Judge Dee said rising. "Mr. Kuan won't miss us. Let's be on our way!"
"Who knows whether we might not find Mo Mo-te or the one-armed girl in that closed part of the monastery!" Tao Gan said hopefully.
He took the lantern from the corner table, and they went out. Kuan was still snoring peacefully.
XIII
At this late hour the monastery was deserted. They met no one on the ground floor, or on the stairs leading to the latticed landing over the temple hall.
Judge Dee had a quick look at the passage leading to the store-room but no one was there.
Tsung Lee took them in the opposite direction, through the long passage leading to the tower on the south-west corner, where Sun Ming had his quarters. When they arrived in the small hall that gave access to the landing in front of Sun's library, Tsung Lee pulled the narrow door on the right open and went down a flight of stairs. They found themselves before a spacious portal. Pointing to the pair of high, double doors, lavishly decorated with wood carving, the poet whispered:
"That's the entrance to the Gallery of Horrors. That big padlock looks rather formidable!"
"I have seen worse!" Tao Gan grunted. He took a leather folder with various instruments from his capacious sleeve, and set to work. Tsung Lee held the lantern for him.
"I was told that the gallery hadn't been opened for some months," the judge observed. "Yet there isn't a speck of dust on the cross bar!"
"They were in here yesterday, sir," the poet said. "A worm-eaten statue had to be repaired."
"There you are!" Tao Gan said contentedly. He opened the padlock and took the cross bar down. The judge and Tsung Lee went inside. Tao Gan pulled the door shut behind them. Tsung lifted the lantern high and Judge Dee surveyed the long, broad gallery. It was cold and damp in there. Pulling his robe closer he muttered: "Disgusting exhibition, as usual!"
"My father used to say that these galleries ought to be abolished, sir," Tsung remarked.
"He was right!" the judge said caustically.
Tao Gan surveyed the gallery too. He muttered with a sniff: "All these horrors are no use! People will still get themselves into mischief, horrors disregarding! They are just made that way."
The wall on their right was covered with scrolls bearing Taoist texts on sin and retribution. But all along the left wall stood a row of life-size statues which represented the torments inflicted on the souls of sinners in the Taoist Inferno. Here one saw gruesome devils sawing a writhing man in two, there a group of grinning goblins were boiling a man and a woman in an iron kettle. Further on, ox-headed and horse-headed devils were dragging men and women by their hair before the Black Judge of the Nether World, sculptured in relief but with a long beard of real hair. All the statues were vividly coloured. The light of Tsung's lantern shone on the leering masks of the demons, and the horribly distorted faces of their victims.
The three men walked on quickly, keeping close to the wall on the right so as not to come too near all the horrors. Judge Dee's eye was caught by a woman, stark naked, lying spreadeagled on her back against a large boulder, while a huge blue devil pressed the point of his spear against her breast. Her long hair hung over her face. Her hands and feet had been cut off, and her body of cracked plaster was loaded with heavy chains, but it showed all details with obscene clarity. The next scene was even worse. Two demons clad like ancient warriors, in blood-stained armour, were hacking a naked man and woman to pieces on a large chopping block, using battle-axes. Of the man only the rump was left, but the woman, lying on her face over the block, was just having her arms cut off.
Quickening his pace Judge Dee said crossly to Tao Gan: "I'll tell the abbot to have the statues of those women removed. All these scenes are sufficiently repulsive. They need not include women who are thus exposed. Such lurid representations are not allowed in an officially recognized place of worship."
The door at the end of the gallery was not locked. A steep flight of steps brought them to a large, square room.
"Here we must be on the first floor of the north-west tower," Tsung Lee said. "If I remember the plan correctly, the door over there gives access to the stairs leading down to the crypt, under the Sanctum." Tao Gan began to work on the lock.
"This hasn't been opened for a long time," he remarked. "It's all rusty."
It took some time before a snapping sound announced that Tao Gan had sprung the lock. He pushed the heavy door open. A musty odour rose from the darkness below.
Judge Dee took the lantern from Tsung Lee and went carefully down the narrow, uneven steps. When he had counted thirty, the steps made a right turn. He counted again thirty steps, now hewn directly from the rock. He let the light of the lantern fall on the solid iron door that barred his way, fastened by a heavy chain with a padlock. He pressed himself against the damp wall to make room for Tao Gan.
When the gaunt man had also opened this lock and removed the chain, the judge stepped inside. A sound of flapping wings came from the darkness. He quickly drew back. A small black shape fluttered past his head.
"Bats!" he said disgustedly. He went inside and lifted the lantern high above his head. The two others remained standing behind him. Silently they surveyed the awe-inspiring scene.
Judge Dee and his Helpers Inspect the Crypt
In the centre of the small, octagonal crypt stood a dais of gilded wood. On it was throned a human figure, sitting in a high abbot's chair of carved red lacquer. It was dressed in full regalia; a robe of stiff gold brocade with a broad stole of red silk was draped round the narrow shoulders. Under the high tiara, glittering with gold, a brownish, sunken face stared at them with strange eyes that looked like shriveled slits. A ragged white beard hung from the chin. One strand had come loose. The left hand was hidden under the stole. The other held a long abbot's staff in thin, claw-like fingers.
Judge Dee made a bow. His two companions followed his example. Then the judge took a step forward and let the light shine on the walls. The stone surface had been polished smooth, and Taoist texts were carved there in beautiful, large characters, filled in with gold lacquer. Against the back wall stood a large box of red leather, secured with a copper padlock. There was no other furniture, but the floor was covered by a thick carpet, showing blue Taoist symbols woven into a gold-brown ground. The air was dry and crisp.
As they were walking around the dais, more small bats flew around the lantern. Judge Dee shooed them away.
"Where could they be coming from?" Tsung Lee asked in a hushed voice.
The judge pointed at two apertures in the ceiling.
"Those are airshafts," he said. "Your poem about the two abbots was all wrong. There are no maggots here. It's too dry. You should have said bats. But probably you couldn't have found a word rhyming with that anyway!"