"You can't fool me!" Judge Dee snapped. "This cat, your victim's pet, did its master one last service! This cat proves clearly that you are lying. Here, look at its eyes! Don't you see that the pupils are wide open? If it had been painted at noontime, in summer, and in this brightly lit room, the pupils would have been just narrow slits!"
A long shudder shook the abbot's spare frame. He stared with wide eyes at the picture in front of him. Then he passed his hand over his face. He looked up into the blazing eyes of the judge, and said tonelessly: "I want to deliver a statement in front of Master Sun Ming."
"As you like!" Judge Dee replied coldly. He rolled the picture up again and put it in his bosom. The abbot led them down a broad stair-case. Below, he said in the same toneless voice: "The storm is over. We can go by the courtyard."
The four men crossed the wet, empty central courtyard, strewn with broken tiles. Judge Dee walked with the abbot in front, Tao Gan and Tsung Lee following close behind.
The abbot made for the building west of the temple, and pushed a door open in the corner of the yard. It gave access to a narrow passage that led them straight to the portal in front of the refectory. As they went to the spiral staircase leading up into the south-west tower, a deep voice spoke up: "What are you people doing here in the deep of night?" Sun Ming was standing there, carrying a lighted lantern.
Judge Dee said gravely: "The abbot wants to make a statement, sir. He expressed the wish to do so in Your Excellency's presence."
Master Sun lifted the lantern and gave the abbot an astonished look. He said to him curtly: "Come up to my library, my friend. We can't engage in delivering statements here in this draughty portal!" Turning to the judge he asked: "Is the presence of those two other fellows necessary?"
"I am afraid it is, sir. They are important witnesses."
"In that case you better carry my lantern," Sun said handing it to the judge. "I know my way about."
He went up the stairs, followed by the abbot, with Judge Dee, Tao Gan and Tsung close behind him. The judge noticed that his legs felt as if they were made of lead. There seemed to be no end to the winding stairs.
At last they arrived at the top of the dark staircase. Judge Dee lifted his lantern and saw Sun Ming step on to the landing in front of his library. The abbot followed him. When Judge Dee's head was on a level with the platform, he heard Sun say: "Mind your step now!" Suddenly he shouted: "Hold on, man!"
At the same time there was a hoarse cry. Then a sickening thud from the darkness deep below them.
XV
Judge Dee stepped hastily onto the landing, holding the lantern high. Sun Ming grabbed his arm, his round face was of a deadly pallor. He said hoarsely: "The poor fellow grabbed for the balustrade that wasn't there!" He let Judge Dee's arm go and wiped the perspiration from his face.
"Run down and have a look!" Judge Dee ordered Tao Gan. And to Sun Ming: "He won't have survived that fall. Let's go inside, sir."
The two men entered the library. Tsung Lee had followed Tao Gan downstairs.
"The poor wretch!" Sun said as he sat down behind his desk. "What was it all about, Dee?"
Judge Dee took the chair opposite; his legs were trembling from fatigue. He took the rolled-up picture from his bosom and placed it on the desk. Then he spoke: "I paid a visit to the crypt, sir, and there looked at a few pictures the old abbot Jade Mirror made of his cat. It struck me that he used to do those in great detail. On one painting the cat's pupils were just slits; it must have been done at noon. Then I remembered that on his last picture which you showed me in the temple, the pupils of the cat were wide open. That proved to me that the picture was painted in the morning, and not at noon, as True Wisdom had always said." He unrolled the scroll and pointed to the cat's eyes.
"I can't understand what you are getting at, Dee!" Sun said annoyed. "What has all this to do with Jade Mirror's death? I was there myself, I tell you, the man died peacefully and…"
"Allow me to explain, sir," Judge Dee interrupted respectfully. He then told Sun about the reference to nightshades in the old abbot's letter to Dr. Tsung, and how the symptoms of nightshade poisoning accorded well with the old abbot's behaviour during his last hours. He added diffidently: "If I may say so, sir, it has often struck me that Taoist texts are always couched in a highly obscure and ambiguous language. One could imagine that the old abbot's last sermon was in fact a confused mixture of various religious passages he remembered. It needed the commentary of the Chief Abbot to make sense. I presume he chose some mystic terms from the abbot's sermon, and made those the theme for a lucid discussion, or he …" He broke off, giving Master Sun an anxious look.
But Sun was perplexed. He made no attempt to speak up in favour of Taoist texts. He just sat there, slowly shaking his large head. The judge went on: "True Wisdom put a large dose of the poison in Jade Mirror's tea when, after the noon meal, they were having a cup together in the library. The picture was nearly finished then. The abbot had spent the entire morning on it, first doing the cat itself, then painting in background and details. He had only to do the bamboo leaves when he interrupted his work for the noon meal. After he had drunk the poisoned tea, True Wisdom left and told the two monks who were waiting outside that the abbot should not be disturbed, because he was starting on a picture. The poison soon brought him into a state of mental excitement. He started to hum Taoist hymns, then began to talk to himself. There can be no doubt that he thought he was becoming inspired. It didn't enter his mind that he had been poisoned. You'll remember, sir, that he did not say one word about that being his last sermon, nor about wanting to depart from this world after he had finished. There was no reason to. He only wanted to pass on to his followers the revelation that Heaven had granted him. After that he leaned back in his chair, wanting to rest awhile after his lengthy speech. But then he passed away — a happy man."
"Almighty Heaven!" Sun now exclaimed. "You must be right, Dee! But why did the fool murder Jade Mirror? And why did he insist on making his confession in front of me?"
"I think," Judge Dee replied, "that True Wisdom had committed a sordid crime, and that he feared that the old abbot had discovered it and was planning to expose him. Jade Mirror wrote in his last letter to Dr. Tsung that he suspected that immoral acts were being committed with the girls who came here to be initiated and to be ordained as nuns. If this had come out, True Wisdom would, of course, have been finished."
Sun passed his hand over his eyes in a weary gesture.
"Immoral acts!" he muttered. "The fool must have been dabbling in black magic, involving rites with woman partners. August Heaven, I am responsible also, Dee! I shouldn't have kept myself shut up in my library all the time. I should have kept an eye on what was going on. And Jade Mirror is guilty too, in a way. Why didn't he at once tell me about his suspicions? I hadn't the faintest idea that…"
His voice trailed off. Judge Dee resumed: "I think that True Wisdom, together with a villain who now calls himself Mo Mo-te, was responsible for the fate of the three girls who died here last year. They must have been forced to take part in the unspeakable secret rites, just like those others who came here before the old abbot died. Mo Mo-te has now re-visited this monastery, in the guise of a member of Kuan's troupe. Mo probably threatened the abbot and tried to blackmail him. I noticed that the abbot was afraid of Mo. That, together with broad hints at the old abbot's having been murdered with deadly nightshade, made in public by Tsung Lee, must have made True Wisdom desperate. When at the end of the banquet he saw Tsung Lee talking with me, and when directly afterwards I told True Wisdom that I wanted to visit the crypt, he thought I was planning to institute an investigation. He became frantic, and tried to kill me. He dealt me a blow on my head from behind, but before I lost consciousness, I perceived the smell of a peculiar incense he burns in the bedroom. Ordinarily one doesn't smell it when one is near him, but I got a waft of it from the folds of his robe when he lifted his arm to hit me. Later he spied on me when I was talking with my assistant, and when he fled, I again noticed that particular smell. The man must have lost his head completely."