Mandala of Sherlock Holmes (5 page)

4

Flora and Fauna

Despite a somewhat restless night, I made my way early next morning to the hotel. Once again I was subjected to the hostile glare of the Sikh commissionaire, but I managed to avoid the manager and the desk clerk in the hall and quickly made my way up to Sherlock Holmes’s room.

‘Come in, come in,’ a sharp voice cried out, as I knocked on the door of Room 289.

The room was full of dense tobacco smoke, but a single open curtain permitted a little of the early morning sun to shine into the room. He sat with legs crossed like a native rajah, on a kind of Eastern divan that he had constructed on the floor with all the pillows from his bed and cushions from the sofa and armchair. The effect of oriental splendour was heightened by the resplendent rococo purple dressing gown he wore and the opulent hookah that was laid out in front of him — the long satin-covered tube ending with a delicate amber stem that he held pensively between his thin long fingers. His eyes werefixed vacantiy up at the corner of the ceiling. The blue smoke rose languidly from the hookah-bowl, while he remained silent, motionless, a shaft of sunlight shining on his strong aquiline features.

‘Good morning, Mr Holmes. I perceive that you favour the native pipe today.’

‘It has its virtues,’ he replied languidly, ‘especially during such sedentary moments. It is a recent discovery of mine that the balsamic odour of the native tobacco is peculiarly conducive to the maintenance of prolonged periods of meditation.’

He puffed thoughtfully. The smoke bubbled merrily through the rosewater.

‘You have not slept, Sir?’ I enquired solicitously.

‘No. No. I have been turning over our littie problem in my mind — besides a few other things. Tell me …’ he said suddenly, ‘…what is the meaning of life, of this perennial circle of misery, fear, and violence?’
¹

‘Well, Sir…’ I began, somewhat at a loss for words. ‘I am, if you will pardon the expression, a scientific man, and therefore at quite a disadvantage when expressing opinions on such… ah… spiritual matters. But a Thibetan lama whom I once had the privilege of interviewing, for strictly ethnological purposes on matters of Lamaist ritual and beliefs, was of the opinion that life was suffering. Indeed, it was the primary article of his credo.’

‘Wise man,’ Holmes murmured, ‘wise man.’ He was silent for a while. His eyes gazed into space with a strange burning vacancy. For just a moment it seemed to me that beneath his calm, rational, superior self there struggled another more intense and restless soul — not at all European — but what would be recognised in the East as a ‘Seeker’. Then with a conscious effort he broke off his singular reverie.

‘Have you breakfasted?’ he asked. I noticed an empty breakfast tray pushed away to the side.

‘A cup of coffee? No? Well then, if it is not too early, could I trouble you to accompany me to the Bombay Natural History Society that you mentioned last night.’

‘Mr Symington, the secretary is at the premises quite early, Sir. He works on his own researches there as it is much cooler in the mornings.’

‘Excellent. Then let us not waste any time.’

He carefully coiled up the tube of his hookah, and taking off his dressing gown, put on the grey linen jacket he had worn the day before. Unlike most Europeans in India he did not wear a pith helmet or a topee, but made do with a light cap, of the kind which I think is called a deerstalker.

We quickly made our way downstairs. Before leaving the hotel Mr Holmes went over to the reception desk where he scribbled a chit and sealing it in an envelope handed it to one of the hotel clerks there. I suspected that the note was for Strickland. Then Mr Holmes and I left the hotel in a ghari.

There was the tang of saltwater in the air as we rattled down the beach road, where near-naked boys were selling coconut water, fresh in its own shell, and two ash-covered sadhus were performing their sun worship in the sea. Things were less peaceful at the Borah Bazaar where shopkeepers, vendors, tongawallahs, coolies, and pedestrians of all kinds were noisily beginning their day. Finally we arrived at the brick bungalow of the Bombay Natural History Society.

We waited in a large hall while the chaprasi went to find Mr Symington. The whole place was filled with an extraordinary variety of rather moth-eaten exhibits of stuffed birds and animals behind labelled glass cases. After a few minutes the chaprasi returned.

‘The sahib awaits you. Please come this way.’

Stumbling over stuffed crocodiles and the hoofs of sambhar floor rugs, we followed him through a corridor and into a long chamber lined and littered with botdes of various chemicals. Broad, low tables bristled with retorts, test-tubes, and littie Bunsen lamps, with their blue flickeringx flames. An overpowering smell of formaldehyde permeated the air. It did not seem to bother Symington, who sat behind a long marble-topped table sorting out what looked to me like dirty duckweed with the aid of a pair of tweezers. He was a small, untidy man with a bald shining head that was covered scantily on the sides and back with tufts of grey hair. Raising his head slightly he peered through his thick spectacles with weak watery eyes.

‘Hello, is that you Mookerjee?’

‘Yes, Mr Symington. How are you?’

‘As well as can be expected. By the way, I never got the chance to thank you for that specimen of
Primula glacialis.1
It’s a real feather in my cap, you know. Even Hooker
³
never got one.’

‘Well, Sir, the true specimens only grow around twenty thousand feet. It is difficult for human life to manage at those heights.’

‘But somehow you did, didn’t you, you old devil,’ he chuckled, pushing up a pair of spectacles that always had a tendency to slip down his nose. ‘Now, who is your friend here?’

‘Mr Sigerson is from Norway, Sir. He is a … an … ah … explorer.’

‘An explorer? How interesting. Very glad to meet you, Sir. How can I be of service to you?’

‘If it is not too much trouble,’ said Sherlock Holmes, ‘I would like to consult whatever literature you may have on
Hirudenia!

‘Hirudenia?
Ah. You have come to the right place. We have every standard work on the subject, including a few very special and important reports that I may presume to say are not to be found anywhere in Europe at present. Please follow me.’

He led us into a long narrow chamber lined on either side with tall mahogany bookcases. He opened the glass-framed doors of one and peered short-sightedly at the collection of books inside.

‘Could I trouble you for that?’ He turned around, pointing at a low step-ladder nearby. I carried it over to him.

‘Thank you.’ He climbed up the first three steps and, peering closely at the spines of the books on the top shelf, commenced a litany of the names of the authors, who were, I suppose, all experts on
‘Hirudenia]
whatever that was.

‘Fowler.,. Merridew… Konrad… Hackett, humm… Hackett. Don’t think he’d be any good to you; fellow deals with
invertebrate phyla
in general. Konrad and Merridew are best especially on the
hirudenia
of this country.’ He pulled out two slim volumes and, blowing the dust off the top, handed them to Holmes. ‘Hope you find what you need in here. Not too fond of them myself. Strictiy a flora man. Blood thirsty brutes killed half my pack animals on an expedition once. Well, I will leave you to your research.’

Holmes sat on the step-ladder and began reading. He flipped over the pages of the first book impatiently, and when he got to the end put it aside with a snort of disgust. He must have found what he was after in the second book for he suddenly stopped flipping the pages and gave a little cry of triumph.

‘Ha! Ha! Capital!’ he chuckled, twitching with excitement, poring carefully over the page, underlining each sentence with a nervous finger. He occasionally paused to scribble brief notes on his cuff. After a long time he turned to me, shaking his head with feigned sorrow. ‘Ah, me! It’s a wicked world; and when a clever man turns his brain to revenge, it is the worst of all. I think I have enough information now…’

‘Mr Holmes! You have solved…’

‘Exactly, Mr Mookerjee. Only that I arrived at my conclusions last night, aided in part by the invigorating fumes of a few ounces of native tobacco. This …’ he said, closing the book with a thump, ‘… is merely confirmation.’

‘But I don’t understand how…’

‘Patience,’ he replied. ‘All will be revealed in good time, I assure you. I have my own peculiar way of working, which you must forgive me. And now for a little recreation. I would like to avail myself of the services you offered to me on our first meeting aboard the ship, and be introduced to the sights of this city’

We left the library and, going down to the laboratory, said goodbye to Symington. The old botanist shook Holmes by the hand and made a not very subtle bid to elicit information about Holmes’s purported explorations.

‘Well, Mr Sigerson, I wish you the best of luck in your venture. Mookerjee here knows the ropes and ought to be able to safely guide you to … ahh … where did you say you were going to pursue your explorations?’

‘I did not,’ said Mr Holmes, the merest hint of amusement colouring his voice. ‘But your cooperation has been invaluable, and it would be ungrateful of me to be reticent. In all confidence, I am telling you that it is my intention to enter Thibet and visit the fabled city of Lhassa.’

As I had feared, Symington at once began to greedily enumerate a long list of plant specimens we were to obtain for him in the highlands of Thibet.

‘… remember, I want the Blue Poppy and the
Stelleria decumbens,
root and all… and don’t get discouraged by the spines … the
Gentiana depressa
must be of the dwarf variety otherwise …’

Offering tactful but non-committal replies, I managed to finally extricate Mr Holmes and myself from the company of Symington, who would have even walked with us down the street with his endless catalogue of botanical needs, if we hadn’t luckily chanced upon a ticca-ghari at the gate of the bungalow. We hurriedly boarded the carriage and fled.

Sherlock Holmes leaned back on the cracked leather seat of the ghari and chuckled. ‘The etymology of the word “enthusiasm” can be traced back to the Greek
enthousia,
meaning to be possessed by a god or demon. But it never occurred to me till today how true the word has remained to its origin.’

‘I’m afraid I put you in a false position, Mr Holmes,’ I apologised, ‘by claiming that you were an explorer.’

‘Nonsense, Huree. Your explanation, though spontaneous, was prescient. On the conclusion of this case I intend to undertake an exploration and make my small contribution to the furtherance of human frontiers.’

‘But why Thibet, Mr Holmes?’

‘Is it not obvious? It is one of the last of the secret places of the earth, defying the most adventurous of travellers to force open its closed doors.’

‘You will never get there,’ I thought to myself.‘You, Mr Holmes, may be the world’s greatest detective, but the priestly rulers of Thibet do not love foreigners, especially Europeans. No man ever gets even close to the Holy City without an official passport, and none are ever issued to white men. Even I only succeeded in reaching about halfway to Lhassa before the authorities discovered my true identity and nearly had my bally head cut off’

‘Of late…’ continued Sherlock Holmes, ‘… I have been tempted to look into the problems furnished by nature rather than the more superficial ones for which our artificial state of being is responsible. Of these the ultimate problem is the meaning of our existence. It is in the hope of some explanation that I must go to Thibet which, rightly or wrongly, has been reported to be the last living link that connects us with the civilisations of our distant past, and where is preserved the knowledge of the hidden forces of the human soul’ He lit his pipe and puffed meditatively. ‘There is nothing in which deduction is so necessary as in religion. It can be built up as an exact science by the reasoner.’
⁴

The carriage trundled down Hornby Road towards the Mumba Devi Temple, and I performed my duty as a guide explaining to Mr Holmes the cult of the goddess Mumba (a fof m of Parvati, consort of Shiva) from whom the city had taken its name. Mr Holmes, like Strickland (thus unlike most other Englishmen) was a good listener, and his interest genuine and scientific. It was therefore a great pleasure for me to explain to him the sights of the city, frequently illuminating my discourse with jolly interesting and pertinent anecdotes. It is not generally known, for instance, not even to the citizens of this fair metropolis, that there was human occupation in the area even during the Stone Age. Very recently, Paleolithic stone implements have been found at Kandivli in Greater Bombay by a scientific acquaintance of mine, a Mr Cunningham of the Royal Asiatic Society.

North of Greater Bombay are the Kanheri caves (which is a very jolly holiday spot) and the site of an ancient Buddhist University. More than a hundred caves have been discovered filled with gigantic Buddhist sculptures. The Portuguese who obtained the islands in 1534 presented them to Britain in 1661 as part of the dowry of Catherine of Braganza, sister of the king of Portugal, when she married Charles II. Ever since then, under the aegis of the Viceroy of India, Steward of our Most Gracious Majesty, the Queen Empress, this city has seen such tremendous progress,
pro bono publico,
in industry, building, education, and what not, that it is, without doubt, the foremost megapolis in the Empire — after London, of course, which I have not yet had the privilege of visiting.

Mr Holmes and I spent a most pleasant day touring the city and only during the late afternoon, after examining the delightfully didactic exhibits at the Victoria and Albert Museum, did Mr Holmes make reference to the murder case again.

‘Well, I think we have refreshed our minds enough for the day,’ he said, climbing into a carriage parked outside the Museum gates. ‘Strickland will have set the stage by now for the final resolution of our problem. Kindly instruct the coachman to take us back to our hotel.’