The Oriental Casebook of Sherlock Holmes (10 page)

“Upon my return home after my last year of school, I found that Mr. Morrison had moved into the house and was living with my mother. To the outside world, he was merely a boarder who lived in the guest cottage, a convenient pretense that satisfied local speculation and quieted much of the initial gossip. One day, he began to evince a great interest in Nepal and my father’s work there. In explanation he pointed to a lifelong interest in geography and the Himalayas, which were still a terra incognita, as he called them, and speculated that he might expand his business to include rare Himalayan woods. Even though we had lived there for but a few months, he questioned us both incessantly, and seemed particularly interested in the city of Katmandu and its overall plan. He began making drawings of the streets and gullies of the city which he showed to us for correction. His questioning became almost brutal at times, and my initial feelings of warmth towards him immediately turned to dislike when I learned quite by accident that he had found Father’s letters to me in my desk and had read them through. I was horrified at the intrusion into my privacy. When I confronted him with his disgusting conduct, he merely denied it, saying that he had taken the letters because my mother had wanted to re-read for him one of the notes to her from my father. My mother supported his explanation, which I knew in my heart to be untrue, and I found myself unable now to talk to my mother except about trivial matters.”

One night, she said, just before retiring, she heard her mother and Morrison shouting at each other in the library. He had been questioning her closely concerning the Residence itself, its occupants, including the guards and the servants, and the arrangement of rooms, including the furniture. He also wanted to know exactly what the gardens were like. She heard her mother plead with him, saying that she could tell him no more, for she remembered nothing beyond what she had already told him. At this he lost his temper and began striking her. Lucy heard her pleas for mercy. She rushed to the door and banged on it, shouting at him. There was only silence. Mr. Morrison opened the door. Her mother was crying softly, her face bruised in several places. Morrison stood opposite me, his face calm, his cold grey eyes filled with an unholy satisfaction. She felt as though she was in the presence of evil incarnate. She rushed to her mother’s side, and Morrison left for the guest cottage.

“My mother’s bruises were horrible to see, but they proved not to be serious. Had Morrison and she been alone, however, I had no doubt that they would have been far worse. She said nothing to me until the following morning, when she said sadly that she was unworthy of him and that he had threatened to leave. I was overjoyed at his threat, but my mother, totally under his sway, said that she would do anything to please him and make him stay. That afternoon we learned that Morrison had indeed left the guest cottage with all his belongings, leaving no indication as to where he had gone. My mother was disconsolate, calling all known friends and acquaintances, but Morrison had disappeared, to where, no one knew. As the days passed and Morrison did not return, my mother became embittered, her anger being addressed mostly towards me. It soon became apparent that the conflict between us would not resolve itself and that I would have to leave. After a dreadful argument in which my mother accused me of turning Morrison’s love away from her, I decided on my departure. I had nowhere to go except to return to hmy father. I wrote him, saying that I was coming as fast as I could, and I took the first available passage to Calcutta, making the difficult land journey from there with an escort sent by the Maharajah.”

When Miss Richardson had finished her story, Holmes suggested that they continue on to the shrine of the Sleeping Vishnu. A group of children had by now gathered about them. The children stared at them, laughing, and they smiled in return. Then a gong sounded, and the children motioned to them to follow. They climbed to the top of the shrine, where they looked down on a procession, the continuation of the very same one that Holmes had seen at the city gate. Nine tall figures, with large brass faces, their bodies clothed in red robes, walked slowly to a small statue of the Buddha, where they bowed in silence, and then moved on. They watched them until they disappeared in the distance. They then turned back, and by the time we reached the Residence, it was dusk, and the pandit took his leave.

“Lucy Richardson’s deeply moving story had served to confirm my worst fears,” said Holmes. “Though I did not know it for certain, there was a growing suspicion in my mind that the mysterious and cruel Mr. Morrison might now be in Katmandu. Why else the great interest in things Nepalese? Perhaps he was the murderer of Rizzetti, and was directing Wright’s actions within the Residence. But as far as I knew he was not there but elsewhere. How to resolve these questions?”

He decided on immediate action. First, he needed to know more about Morrison. He recalled that he had confided his whereabouts to only one individual, his brother Mycroft, with whom he had previously arranged an elaborate code system should he have to establish contact with him. It was based on cryptographic principles that Mycroft had invented in his youth. Whenever possible, as an added precaution, this code was embedded in the most obscure of languages. Holmes had used the Burushaski language of Hunza on several occasions in the past and once before Lorana, an obscure South American Indian dialect. This time, having no access to them, he decided to use Kusunda, the language of a dying Himalayan tribe, one that Hodgson himself had originally discovered. This language, even more unknown than Burushaski, was almost extinct and was known to only two Europeans. The possibility of its being understood in any way during the message’s transmission were most improbable. He signed the message “Jorgensen,” the name of the author of a small Kusunda-English lexicon. This would identify the language as well as the book that would help Mycroft decode it. In his message, he asked for as much information about Morrison and his whereabouts as Mycroft could uncover. Gorashar hired a reliable runner to take the message by the shortest route to the Tarai, thence to the nearest wireless station in India for transmission to London. The runner was instructed to wait for a reply. Assuming a normal trip for the runner and adequate time for Mycroft to provide answers to his questions, he could expect an answer in no less than three days.

“I then determined,” said Holmes, “that I must enter the Residence secretly that night and speak with Richardson himself, for his own version of events might be most illuminating.”

Entering would not be a difficult business. The Residence was not particularly well guarded. Holmes had noted the presence of two sepoys at the gate during the day and three at night. They sometimes patrolled along the walls but often neglected to do so. Scaling the high wall would be the main problem, but he had noticed several places where this could be done by climbing a nearby tree.

“It was well after midnight when I set out. The nocturnal scene of Katmandu by now had become familiar to me. As usual, I wore Nepalese dress for the night so that I might pass unnoticed were I to be seen in the dark. I walked quickly, taking the route through the central bazaar area. In a short time I had moved through Asantol to Kamalachi, where I turned to the left past the city gate and continued on to the Residence. As I arrived I could see by the light of their lanterns that the three guards were fast asleep. Entering would pose no problem. My only fear was unexpectedly running into Dr. Wright should he be with the Resident during the night. I decided, however, that it was well worth the risk. I scaled a tall tree that was near the wall, climbed out on a large limb, and jumped down to the wall. From it I could see the entire garden and the back of the Residence. There was a light coming from a window near the veranda, and I as I drew closer I could see the Resident. He was alone and in his nightgown. I drew as close as I could. He appeared to be at work. He was writing by candle light, engrossed in the tasks that he had been forced to neglect during the days previous. Everything appeared calm and peaceful.”

Suddenly Holmes heard a slight noise in the garden below. There, moving in the yard, was an immense human figure, well over seven feet tall, dressed in black, walking slowly toward the Residence. He carried a lantern in his left hand and appeared to be searching the ground as he walked. His clothes were reminiscent of those of almost a century ago, and he had a long white beard. The figure interrupted its walk, stooped over, and began to moan. Then it stood erect and again began its slow approach to the Residence. It was at this point that Holmes saw the Resident move slowly. He had a pistol in his hand. As the figure drew nearer, Richardson rose, opened the door to the veranda and walked out. He took slow deliberate aim at the figure and fired. At that range Holmes judged that the shot had to be a direct hit. The figure reeled slightly but did not fall. Again Richardson took careful aim at the head and chest, firing several shots. While their impact was visible, they did not stop nor wound the apparition. There was only a strange, dry, cracking noise as the impact of the bullets hit its body.

Unable to stop the apparition, Richardson became terrified and rang for the servants, who came running. In the few seconds in which Holmes took his eyes away to watch the Resident, the figure in the garden disappeared into the night. He continued to lie flat on the wall so as not to be noticed. Richardson was helped back into his bedroom by two attendants, and by Lucy, who appeared distraught at the sight of his trembling. Dr. Wright came soon after. Holmes watched as he mixed a potion. He appeared calm and unconcerned as he ministered to the Resident, and soon left.

Holmes smiled inwardly, for parts of this complex plot were becoming clearer to him now. One thing was certain: Richardson was not having hallucinations. What he had seen was real and not the nocturnal imaginings of a feverish brain. As Holmes peered through the window, he could see him lying in his bed, frightened, the pistol firmly clasped in his right hand. Holmes’s task now was to reach him and question him before he used his gun and put an end to his own life, for he was an excellent shot. Fortune was with him, for he saw that despite his fear, Richardson was tiring and was beginning to doze off. Whatever Wright had fed him had begun to take effect.

When Holmes was sure that he was asleep, he made his way over to the veranda and entered the Resident’s room. He quickly took the pistol out of his hand, and shook him gently. Richardson was about to scream when Holmes put his hand over his mouth firmly and said: “Have no fear. I am a friend. You are not sick, nor are you having visions.”

“Kaul!” he exclaimed. “How on earth did you enter?”

“All explanations at the proper time. Right now we haven’t a moment to lose. Mr. Richardson, your life is in mortal danger. You must leave the Residence with me at once. Your absence will be for a short time, at the most perhaps two days, perhaps only a matter of hours.”

“I cannot leave my post, nor can I leave my daughter.”

“You have no choice. For the moment at least, your daughter is in no real danger, but you are. Trust me. Time is short.”

These last words seemed to reassure and convince him that he must leave. Holmes threw a coat over him, and he followed him out onto the veranda. Holmes insisted that they go by the way he had come. It was not easy for the Resident in his weakened condition, and several times Holmes thought that he might fall off the wall as they crawled along it to the tree that would lead them below. But the freedom that the Resident now felt had invigorated him, and once they lowered themselves from the tree, he walked briskly enough. There was no one out at this hour, and they easily entered the hotel and Holmes’s room unseen by anyone.

“I decided at this point to identify myself to him, Watson, for I thought that the pretences that I had set up were about to crumble under the force of events. He seemed highly sceptical at first, considering the news that had spread about my death, but a few details about the Reichenbach Falls and Professor Moriarty quickly assured him that it was indeed Sherlock Holmes standing before him.”

“What is happening here in Nepal, Holmes?” asked the Resident. “Why on earth should someone want to injure me?”

“I have several theories, but I do not have sufficient information to decide among them. But let me hear your account of events.”

The Resident began slowly, his words unclear at first, Holmes prodding him at times with questions.

“Despite your saying that you saw the apparition tonight yourself,” he said, “I still cannot remove it from my mind. I have been ill, very ill. At night I see these visions and cannot sleep. The hallucinations are spirits, according to those Nepalese who want us British out of Nepal, because our presence desecrates their soil. We must leave, therefore, otherwise we shall die here, they say. Dr. Wright says these visions are rather typical of Nepalese illnesses. Sometimes I feel better after his treatment, other times much worse.

“Are these visions all like the one tonight, or are there others as well?”

“‘There is really only one. It begins after I have fallen asleep. I am awakened by something, perhaps the strange creaking sound that the vision makes as it approaches. I see it vaguely at first through my window. Then there comes a dim light. It is a lantern carried by a tall, bearded figure dressed in black, wandering through the garden. Last night it came close. And I saw its face, the face of a withered old man. The servants say it is the ghost of one of the former Residents, Hodgson, whose spirit has returned from England to search for his dead wife. They say that he will not leave until I leave or I am dead. At first I did not for a minute believe any of it, Mr. Holmes, but the visions continued and had a frightening reality to them, as you saw tonight. At times they have been so real, in fact, that I have been afraid of losing my mind. I am an excellent marksman, Mr. Holmes, and you saw yourself that bullets had no effect on the ghostly figure.

“I understand,” said I, “but pray continue, for the ghosts are indeed real and have a natural explanation.”