"What do you mean by that, Dee?" he asked perplexed.
"It means that you shall be judged inside there, Sun Ming. Unfortunately you were right when you explained to me that I could never initiate a case against you in my tribunal. I therefore now leave the decision to a Higher Tribunal. Heaven shall decide whether five foul murders shall be avenged, or whether I shall perish. You have two chances, Sun, whereas your victims had none. It is quite possible that your presence there shall be ignored. Or, if you are attacked, you may be able to draw the attention of the one man that can save you."
Sun's face grew purple with rage.
"One man you say, you conceited fool? In an hour or so there'll be scores of monks about in the yard, they'll set me free at once!"
"They'll certainly do so — if you are then still alive," the judge said gravely. "There is something with you in there."
Sun looked round. Indistinct sounds came from the darkness.
He grabbed the bars of the peephole. Pressing his distorted face close to them he shouted frantically: "What is that, Dee?"
"You'll find out," the judge said. He shut the panel.
As he entered the temple building again, a scream of terror rent the air.
XX
Judge Dee slowly climbed the stairs to the landing over the temple. There was still no sign of Tao Gan. He went into the corridor leading to the store-room, and opened the second window on his right. Deep down below he heard weak moans, mixed with angry growling. Then there were dry, snapping sounds as of dead branches breaking. He raised his eyes to the windows in the guest-building opposite. All of them remained as they were, the shutters securely closed. He heaved a deep sigh. The case had been decided.
He laid Sun's cloak on the low window sill, then quickly turned away. After breakfast he would draw up the document about Sun's accidental death, which occurred when he leaned too far out of the low window while watching the bear down below.
With a sigh he retraced his steps to the landing. He heard quick footsteps, then saw Tao Gan who came rushing round the corner. His lieutenant said with a contented smile: "I was just going to look for you, sir! You needn't search for Mo Mo-te. I have got him!"
He took the judge to the next corridor. A powerfully-built man clad in a monk's cowl was lying unconscious on the floor, with hands and feet securely tied. Judge Dee stooped and held his lantern close. He recognized the morose face. This was the tall, sullen man he had met in the storeroom, together with the elder monk whom he had asked whether Mo had been there.
"Where did you find him?" he asked.
"Soon after Your Honour had gone up to Master Sun's library, I saw him sneaking up here. I followed him, but he is a wily customer. It took me quite some time before I could come up behind him close enough to throw my thin noose of waxed thread over his head. I pulled it tight till he passed out, then trussed him up neatly."
"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?"