Mandala of Sherlock Holmes (6 page)

Mr Holmes tossed a coin to an urchin begging for alms and leaning back on the carriage seat, smoked a cigarette. He then gave me certain instructions. ‘Now, Huree, it is vital that you follow my directions to the letter. When we arrive at the hotel you will accompany me to the lobby where you will bid me goodnight and make a conspicuous departure. You will th »n make your way to the alley behind the hotel and, using the trade entrance, make your way to my room unnoticed. Knock softly, three times, at the door, and Strickland will let you in. From then on you are to follow his every instruction. As for myself, I will inform the manager or the desk clerk that I am somewhat exhausted by my excursions today, and that I wish to retire early, after having a quick supper in the dining room. That ought to give our friend, whoever he may be, enough time to make his own preparations.’

I was, of course, thrilled to the bone to know that the denouement of this affair was in the offing, and it consoled me somewhat for Mr Holmes’s frightful uncommunicativeness about the case. We arrived at the hotel. Once within- the lobby I bade Mr Holmes goodnight and left through the front entrance, inevitably under the contemptuous gaze of the commissionaire. As my carriage moved across the driveway I had a fleetingglimpse of Mr Holmes addressing the Portuguese desk clerk, who was obsequiously poised in his usual half-bowing state.

1. Holmes expresses a similar thought at the conclusion of
The Adventure of the Cardboard Box.

2. The only other reference I have uncovered on this unique plant is by Peter Goullart in
Princes of the Black Boney
John Murray, 1959. Goullart mentions: ‘I was told by an eminent botanist that high up on the slope of Minya Konkka, shooting through the snow, grew a remarkable primrose, called
Primula Glacialis,
one of the rarest flowers in the world discovered by a Catholic priest. It rivalled the sky in the purity of its blue colour and delicacy of its contours…. Why did the most beautiful, most enchanting and delicate blossoms on the planet grow so high and under such impossibly hard conditions, braving frost, hail, landslides and cruel winds, out of reach of humanity?’

3. Sir Joseph Dalton Hooker travelled throughout India (1848-50) particularly the Sikkim Himalayas, to study the distribution and evolution of plants. He was one of the most eminent of nineteenth century scientists and a close confidant of Darwin.

4. Sherlock Holmes makes very similar statements in
The Final Problem
and the case preceding it,
The Naval Treaty.
It is interesting that the metaphysical strain in him should surface so conspicuously on these two occasions just before his finalencounter with Professor Moriarty — surely the most deadly, yet significant, moment in his life.

5

The Brass Elephant

Outside the gates of the hotel I paid off the carriage, but the blighter of a ghariwallah demanded double the usual fare as he had carried an English sahib besides myself. I gave him a flea in the ear for his impudence, and quickly made my way to the rear of the Taj Mahal Hotel. By now it was dark. I moved carefully, keeping close to the shadowy side of the alley. I waited for a moment behind a pile of empty boxes, while a couple of sweating coolies carried large slabs of ice through the rear entrance of the hotel. When they left, I crossed the alley and entered the building. I climbed up the dark stairs and hurried down the brightly-lit corridor. There was no one about. I knocked sharply, three times, on the door of Room 289. An irate Strickland opened the door and practically dragged me in.

‘Do you have to make such an infernal racket? Come in quick, man. He ought to be here any minute now.’

We concealed ourselves behind a grilled marble screen between the room and the balcony window. I was curious to know why Mr Holmes had posted Strickland to guard his room, and the identity of the mysterious intruder who was expected; but if my years with the Department have taught me anything, they have taught me to hold my water when ill-temper rules the roost; if I may be permitted the expression.

We remained standing silently behind the screen. Through the grille of the screen I could now discern the shadowy outiines of the objects in the room. Strickland sniffed suspiciously.

‘What a horrible smell,’ he whispered irritably. ‘You wouldn’t by any chance be using some kind of perfume, would you, Huree?’

‘Certainly not, Mr Strickland,’ I whispered back crushingly. ‘The aroma happens to emanate from a brand of hair-lotion of which I make daily applications on the scalp. It is a very superior and expensive medicant, retailed at one rupee and four annas a botde and manufactured by Armitage and Anstruthers at their
modern
plant in Liverpool. I highly recommend it, Mr Strickland, it would do wonders for your
coiffure’.

He sighed. We resumed our vigil in dignified silence. Suddenly Strickland gripped me strongly by the arm. There was a slight rattle of a key opening a lock. The door opened noiselessly and for a moment a man’s outline was clearly silhouetted by the gas lights in the corridor. The door closed quickly. The figure, furtively, made its way across the room to the bed. A match was struck. The glow revealed the fat nervous features of the Portuguese desk clerk. He lit a small candle and placed it on the dresser near the head of the bed, then quickly moved a table from the corner of the room (the very same table Mr Holmes had commented upon yesterday) to the side of the bed. Picking up the candle he climbed on the bed and then onto the table. He reached out for the brass elephant hanging over the bed and pulling it close to him he proceeded to perform a series of furtive operations whose exact nature we could not clearly discern from our coign of vantage.

The awkwardness of having to hold a candle in one hand, and arrest the swing of the elephant with the other, made his face shine with sweat and twitch with anxiety. He extracted an objectfrom his jacket pocket that looked like a small container, and transferred something fromit to the lamp. Finally he lit the lamp on the howdah of the brass elephant and let it swing gendy back over the bed.

Then he got off the table and, placing it back in its corner, proceeded to wipe his face with a large handkerchief. He then left the room furtively, locking it behind him. Strickland and I stayed behind the screen for another ten minutes till three sharp raps came from the door. Strickland opened it with a key that he drew from his pocket. Mr Holmes walked in and looked up at the lighted elephant lamp that now swayed only imperceptibly.

‘Ha! I see we have had our visitor. Capital, capital,’ he remarked, rubbing his hands together. ‘Oblige me by turning up the gas. We may have to entertain again this evening, and this time it would not do for our friend to view the consequences of his deed only by the light of this remarkable lamp.’

Mr Holmes’s cheeriness did not dispel my fears. The lamp was definitely not your usual
objet d’art,
and being in the same room as it made me a trifle nervous.

‘I hope it is not malignant in its operation,’ said I, voicing my concern.

‘Not at the moment, but we shall know very soon.’ He turned away from the lamp and looked at Strickland. ‘Now, Strickland, pray enlighten me as to the details.’

He stretched himself out on the sofa as Strickland informed him of all that had transpired in the room.

‘I followed your instructions to the letter, Mr Holmes. At five o’clock, just before sunset, I entered the hotel unobserved, from the trade entrance, and picked up your keyfrom under the cocoanut matting in front of the room. Since then I have been waiting —and a good long wait it has been.’

‘Ah, but one propitious of a very satisfactory conclusion,’ laughed Sherlock Holmes, ‘as the incident you observed a littie while ago will have augured. But we anticipate. Let us examine all our data before we proceed. What was the coroner’s report?’

‘Well, Mr Holmes, the coroner, Dr Patterson, was completely stumped. He says he’s never had to deal with a case like this before. There are no indications of any kind of poison having been administered, nor are there any significant wounds to justify the tremendous bleeding — aside from a few superficial bruises that the deceased probably sustained falling down the staircase. In fact when the coroner had washed the body to examine it, there was practically no blood at all in his veins. I have never seen a paler native body in all my years in the force.’

‘You are certain there were no wounds?’ said Holmes insistently. ‘No marks at all? Not even some insignificant puncture in the skin, around the back of the head or neck?’

‘Mr Holmes, if you are thinking that the man died from a snake bite, I can assure you that it wasn’t so. No reptile, however poisonous, could have …’

‘Were there any puncture marks?’ Holmes interrupted impatiently.

‘Well, there were some slight scratches on the back of his neck, but nothing you could call punctures. I’ve seen all kinds of snake bites in this country and know the pattern they leave on the skin. These were lighter, mere nicks and …’

‘This is the pattern of the scratches, isn’t it?’ said Holmes, holding out a slip of paper on which he had made some marks.

‘How the Devil …?’ Strickland exclaimed, astonished.

‘I thought as much,’ cried Holmes, snapping his long fingers. ‘My case is complete, gentlemen. It is now time to bring matters to a close. Strickland, could I trouble you to escort Mr Carvallo, the desk-clerk, up to this room. I fear that only the majesty of your official presence will succeed in persuading him to come up here again. You will bring him straight up to the bed and make him sit by the side.’ Holmes began to arrange a few chairs to face the bed. ‘Then you will seat yourself on this chair, if you please; Huree, you here. I’ll take the armchair in the middle. I think we will then be sufficiently imposing to strike terror into a guilty breast.’

Strickland left the room and returned shortly with the Portuguese clerk. The fellow shrank back in evident surprise and fear at our judicial appearance, but Strickland firmly propelled him over to the side of the bed.

‘Sit down, Mr Carvallo, sit down,’ said Sherlock Holmes pleasantly. ‘We are sorry to interrupt you in the performance of your duties, but as you will appreciate, the investigation of last night’s tragedy must take priority over all other matters. No, no, please, sit in the middle of the bed, the edges are so uncomfortable, you know. You need not stand on ceremony with us.’

The desk clerk was attempting to sidle to the edge of the bed, occasionally casting furtive glances at the brass lamp above him. His nervous face was covered with perspiration, even more than when I last saw him.

‘Very good,’ said Holmes, leaning back in his armchair. ‘Now, Mr Carvallo, will you please tell us the truth about yesterday’s incident.’

The man turned white to the root of his hair.

‘I do not know what you mean, Sir,’ he managed to stammer.

‘Come, come. You must not think us so simple-minded.’

‘Sir, I am absolutely ignorant of what happened.’

‘This is most unfortunate,’ said Holmes, shaking his head. ‘But I will make some suggestions that may serve to dispel the grievous lapse in your memory. We have every cause to believe that you were the instrument of yesterday’s tragedy. We are prepared to make the concession that the dead man was not your intended victim, though I doubt that the point will sufficientiy impress a judge to deter him from sending you to the gallows. Your real victim was myself, was it not, Sir? It was also some mistake on your part — the result of nervousness, maybe — that caused the premature operation of the device. Did you use too littie wax? Maybe you accidentally jolted the thing when setting it up? You will not tell. Dear me, how very unkind of you.’

The blighter licked his thick, dry lips, but said nothing.

‘Ah, well. It is a minor point and we can come back to it later when you feel more cooperative.’

‘Oh! no, you don’t,’ said Strickland fiercely, pushing the now terrified clerk firmly back on the bed that he had again surreptitiously tried to vacate.

‘No, Mr Carvallo,’ said Mr Holmes, shaking an admonitory forefinger. ‘You will sit there quietly till I havefinished what I have to say. Now, where was I? Ah, yes. How did the unfortunate hotel servant die? I think in all probability he was passing by this room, and, looking through the open door — that you had in your nervous haste forgotten to close — saw the counterpane on the bed somewhat disarranged. Another act of gross negligence on your part, I am afraid. Being a conscientious employee of this hotel, the man stepped into the room and, bending over the bed, proceeded to straighten the counterpane. That was when it happened, did it not? Well. We can never be sure now. But I think my reasoning is sufficientiy correct, at least to convince a jury. Do you not agree, Strickland?’

‘Absolutely,’ said Strickland grimly.

‘Please! Please!’ whispered the clerk hoarsely. The wretched man was now positively shaking with terror, and his large frenzied eyes gazed as if mesmerised at the brass elephant lamp burning above him.

‘The elephant interests you?’ said Mr Holmes, affecting to examine the lamp with a collector’s curiosity. ‘It is definitely of a very superior workmanship, Benaras brass, I should say; though this is the first time I have come across one with a lamp under the canopy. Very clever, if you think about it. Very clever indeed.’ He managed to inject a hint of menace into his concluding words.

Galvanised by terror, the clerk leaped from the bed and collapsed before Mr Holmes. He clung to Holmes’s legs and sobbed: ‘I confess. I confess. The thing is in the lamp. It is a trap. Let me out of the room before …’

Just then there was a sharp click from the lamp, and as we looked up a littie hatch swung openfrom the bottom of the elephant and a small, bright object fell on the bed. The clerk screamed with horror. The thing was red and shiny, no longer than six inches and about the thickness and shape of a piece of garden hose. It rose up, one end poised in the air, wiggling from side to side.

‘What the deuce is it?’ said Strickland.

‘Devilry,’ answered Holmes, reaching into his pocket.

Just then the thing stopped swaying, stiffened for a moment, then with remarkable speed, began to move towards us. Though the desk-clerk’s terror was certainly most contagious, my scientific curiosity compelled me to observe the curious method by which the creature effected locomotion. The moment it dropped its upper end on the ground its rear end rose up and wiggled forward.

The upper end rose again and looped forwards with the rear end following immediately. The creature performed this operation with surprising speed and came rapidly towards us.

The clerk backed away in horror and tumbled backwards over my chair. Strickland and I, though certainly not as frightened as he was, recoiled slightly from the advancing creature, vaguely aware of the menace that lurked in it despite its insignificant size. Only Sherlock Holmes was absolutely unperturbed. He remained calmly seated in his chair, and, as the thing got near his legs, reached into his pocket, pulled out a silver salt-cellar, and bending over poured the contents over the creature. As soon as the salt touched its body it began to squirm and flick about violently, as if in tremendous agony.

‘Why, it is a leech!’ I exclaimed in surprise.

‘But not your common or garden variety,’ said Holmes gravely. ‘This one is a Giant Red Leech
¹
of the Lower Himalayas,
Hirudinea Himalayaca Giganticus,
of the genus
Haemadipsa.
We must thank a kindly providence for restricting its existence to the small district of Kaladhungi in the Western Himalayas. Only its extreme rarity-has cloaked its well-deserved reputation as a deadly killer. You may know that the saliva of the common leech contains chemical substances that not only anaesthetises the wound area, but also contain the anti-coagulant
hirudin,
which is used medically, and which prevents the blood from clotting. My reading this morning at the Natural History Museum informed me that the Giant Red Leech is not only much larger than the common leech, of which about three hundred species are known, but that its saliva contains these chemicals in concentrations
many thousands of times stronger’.