The Oriental Casebook of Sherlock Holmes (8 page)

During his first few days he busied himself with the new disguise and the departure of the Tibetan monk as whom he had arrived from Lhasa. One day, the monk bade good-bye to his few recent acquaintances and departed for India. Just after the police check post at Bhimphedi, however, he abandoned his robes and, donning Kashmiri costume, re-entered the Katmandu Valley as Pandit Kaul of Kashmir.

“I shall not bore you with details, Watson, but I may say that it is remarkable what a beard, properly shaped by a local barber, Tibetan spectacles, and Kashmiri dress can do for one’s appearance. I returned on foot to Gorashar’s hotel, and though he knew of my plan, I was pleased that he did not recognise me when I entered. My disguise as an aging Kashmiri pandit appeared to work very well.”

Holmes now roamed the bazaar rather freely, learning the maze of its narrow streets and alleys. It became apparent to him at once that the notion of a forbidden kingdom was the deliberate and well-calculated fabrication of a weak government that did not have the means to defend itself from outside interference. There were many from abroad living there, and it appeared that anyone who had the physical stamina and the will could enter Nepal. The length and success of his stay depended on the skill of his disguise, and the extent to which he was willing to profit by the corruption of local officialdom. Through the years, the Nepalese government had kept an official record of foreigners afforded permission to enter the country. They numbered but a handful.

“So much for the humbug of governments, Watson. I can attest to the fact that the country was riddled with secret agents working both for and against our interests, and that I recognised several criminals of international repute living in the bazaar. In just two days, I had identified three Tsarist agents, among them the notorious anarchist and bomb thrower Kakovetsky, whose whereabouts had been unknown for many years. There was Rizzetti, the poisoner of entire families, living as a shopkeeper; Thallmann, the inventor of the deadly Salzburg rifle, earning a meagre existence as an old map seller; Caspariste, a groom in the stables of the German Kaiser, who suddenly went mad and left a string of horrors from Warsaw to Messina, now running a spectacle repair shop; and the infamous Anna Miramar, the Spanish gypsy, wanted for the murder of Lord Harrow, now the rich owner of a brothel and the chief supplier of young Nepalese women to the bordellos of India. All of this, Watson, in an area smaller than the distance from Trafalgar Square to Piccadilly. Like a beautiful forbidden fruit, Nepal had begun to attract a large number of maggots, ready to feed on its soft, sweet flesh.

“I shall not deny to you, Watson, the pleasure that I imagined in bringing these criminals to justice, but I realised the difficulty of doing so in a country where the criminal justice system was of a rather crude order. I sensed, also, rather surprisingly one might think considering my stated attitudes in the past, the absence of Scotland Yard, particularly of Gregson and Lestrade, for though I have been harsh at times in my judgement of their intellectual capabilities, their physical presence has enabled me to pull through many a narrow scrape. And, if I may say so, dear Watson, at times such as these, I missed your companionship and wished that you could share with me these strange moments abroad.”

“How I wish,” I said, “I could have been there with you. But pray, continue.”

“Back in my room, more troublesome thoughts emerged in my brain: was the presence of all of these rogues here on the very edge of the civilised world due to accident, or was there some hitherto unsuspected evil intelligence lurking in the shadows, another prime mover of crime whose design was so subtle and so complex that perhaps even the major actors in his plans were unaware of his thoughts and actions, or perhaps even of his existence?”

So much did this and other like thoughts disturb him, he said, that for several nights he could not sleep. One night, he awoke some time after midnight. He dressed and read for a time by candlelight. Though his eyes ached, he could not sleep. He looked out his window. The city was quiet. The Clock Tower struck two. He peered into the pitch-darkness and decided to walk into the bazaar.

“I descended the stairs, walked through the courtyard, then into the front hall of the hotel, where I picked my way gingerly over the bodies of the servant boys asleep on the floor. I unbolted the door and let myself out into the dark. You know my penchant for nocturnal wanderings, Watson. Each new city requires several prowls by night. It is the time when the scent of the criminal is at its strongest.”

The night air was cold, damp with Himalayan mist, and he wrapped myself tightly in a woollen shawl so that only his eyes were visible. He wore a black Nepalu
topi
, the Nepalese cap, so that he would not arouse suspicion in the event that he were seen. But he had little to fear. The night was moonless, the sky cloudy, and the black enveloped one immediately.

The city was filled with stray and wild dogs who began their horrible yelping at dusk and continued until they fell asleep around midnight. They were quiet now, but every so often one growled suddenly from the darkness. Holmes moved on, tripping every so often over the occasional person asleep on the road. He made his way to the market square called Asan. He perceived dimly a few figures performing some nocturnal worship, but except for the occasional sounding of temple bells, the city had entered a silence as deep as the enveloping darkness. He walked slowly down a lane opposite the temple, holding on to the buildings with his left hand as he tried not to stumble on the rough stones of the gully. The ancient bricks sometimes crumbled to dust at his touch, and invisible rodents scurried over his feet.

Holmes must have walked for about twenty minutes, when the lane ended and he found himself in an open area that he took to be the main square of the town near the old royal palace, the so-called Hanuman Dhoka, or Door of Hanuman, the Ape-god. The square itself presented an unearthly appearance in the night, shadows of pagoda temples and idols barely visible. It was here that much of the bloody drama of Nepalese kings and princes haf unfolded. In the centre of the square he saw the hideous image of the Black Goddess. Even in the almost total obscurity of this night, her fangs and the whites of her eyes were visible.

It was only after he passed through this rather lugubrious scene that he noticed any sign of human activity. Before him, just at the beginning of that portion of the bazaar known as Makhantol, he saw the flicker of a candle emanating from a partially open window and heard voices speaking what he thought was English. Curious, he went closer. An argument, quiet but deadly serious, was under way. Three men were seated round a small table, one facing in Holmes’s direction. Holmes could barely see his face, but he thought for a moment that he recognised him. The others, their backs towards him, were wrapped in darkness.

The first man spoke in English but with a very heavy European accent: “No more, unnerstana? No more! I geef you no more—”

“These were his last words, Watson,” said Holmes grimly, “for as he spoke, one of the men seated opposite him rose slowly. He was tall, far too tall for a Nepalese. I could see little of his face by the candlelight, but I saw his eyes. I am not a fanciful person, Watson, but they were enough for me to realise that I was in the presence of a major adversary, for within them I saw a look of such familiar evil intelligence that it took all of my self-control to prevent a gasp of surprise from issuing from my lips. The look was visible for but an instant, for in the same motion with which he had risen from his chair, he pulled a dagger from under his cloak and plunged it into the heart of the man in front of him. So quick was he and so surprised was his victim that the latter let out no sound. The murderer withdrew his weapon from the dead man’s chest, calmly wiping it on his victim’s shawl, and disappeared with his accomplice into the night. As they withdrew, however, the candle flamed bright in the ensuing draft, and for an instant the accomplice’s face was revealed. It was the face of an Englishman.”

Holmes was tempted to follow them, but they disappeared immediately into the dark labyrinth of the city. He sensed, however, that another meeting with the murderers was inevitable. He found the door to the wretched victim’s room and entered. His corpse lay in a pool of blood. The candle was still aflame, and by its light he recognised the face of Rizzetti, the poisoner. The killer of many, he had come to a violent end, richly deserved no doubt, but one that was deeply troubling to Holmes for what it seemed to portend for his stay in Katmandu.

“I left Rizzetti to whoever would eventually find him and walked back to my quarters. As I passed through the hotel courtyard, I noticed the slightest touch of light blue in the sky. I had been gone almost until dawn. No one, however, was aware of my nocturnal peregrination.”

He lay down on the bed and must have fallen into a light sleep, for he suddenly awoke to a strange clatter coming from outside his window. Hundreds of pigeons had gathered on the roof outside to feed on the grain that was thrown to them. It was a morning ritual of Buddhist worship, and he had not yet grown accustomed to the sound of handfuls of maize—muckeye, as they call it—striking the roof. He peered out to see an old Newar woman above him, hurling grain from a veranda high above his room. The day had begun. Morning worship had started all over the city accompanied by the now familiar ablutions of the Nepalese, including the vociferous removal of catarrh from the nose and throat. So real and warmly human were these sounds and sights that they dispelled some of the apprehension engendered by the events of the previous night.

“There was a knock at the door, by now familiar. Lakshman, a small village boy who worked as a bearer in the hotel, was there with my morning tea. He was only eleven years old, dirty, barefoot, but of great cheer and spirit. The Anglo-Indian breakfast of eggs and porridge was on the usual filthy tray, which he placed on a small table in front of my window. He smiled and left as quickly as he had come.”

As he sat in his room reviewing the events of the night before, Holmes became convinced that Rizzetti’s murder might be part of a larger, as yet undefined series of evil events. The question was: where was the centre of this intrigue? Judging from his height, the murderer was in all probability a European, one who could only travel outside at night without being seen unless he had a reason for being here that allowed his stay to be known to the Nepalese authorities. Holmes’s close scrutiny of the bazaar in the previous days led him to believe that he had spotted all the European criminals in Katmandu. All were known to him and not one of them matched the physical appearance of the murderer. No, this villain was not in the bazaar. He was elsewhere. But where? By a process of elimination, Holmes arrived at a possible answer to his question: the British Residence itself, the only place where a foreigner could hide unobserved.

“As I sat there deep in thought, I noticed that the tea cup and saucer had begun to jingle and the small table on which they were placed had begun to shake. The shaking moved to my chair, and for a moment I thought that perhaps a cat or some other animal had moved under it. Suddenly, the entire room began to sway and the hotel itself began to move. The tray slid off the table, and I heard objects outside my window begin to crash and the voices of people shouting wildly. Then the shaking abated as suddenly as it had come. It took no time at all to realise that I had just lived through an earthquake. A strong tremor had passed through the city. I raced to the window. There appeared to have been no great damage, for everything I could see was intact. But it was then that I heard something that I shall not forget: the rhythmic, slow, eerie repetition of what sounded like the syllables ‘Ah Ah,’ said over and over again by what seemed to be the entire population of Katmandu. I learned later from Gorashar that this is the magic utterance of the people, spoken as they press their thumbs against the ground to stop the earth from moving under them any further.”

It was not long before Holmes dressed and was on his way out. He could see that the bright Katmandu sun was already high as he walked through the courtyard. Gorashar stopped him as he was about to leave the hotel and warned that he exercise all caution. The astrologers had seen a most inauspicious conjunction of stars and planets and foresaw the possibility of disastrous events. The morning’s earth tremor was merely the beginning. Everyone in Nepal was worshipping the gods in order to ward off calamity. The entire population of the city was frightened, and in their fear any stranger could be instantly blamed for the situation. He reassured Gorashar that he would be most prudent but that he wished to pay his first call on the British Resident, Mr. Edward Richardson. Gorashar said that Richardson was reportedly ill and that he probably would not receive anyone. Holmes insisted, however, and Gorashar said that he would accompany him as far as the outer wall of the city. Just as they entered the place known as Bhotahity, a large procession stopped them.

“The Bodhisattvas have come to protect us,” said Gorashar.

The procession was a compelling sight. Avalokiteshvara and the other chief figures of Buddhism walked slowly past, their robes barely concealing the more diminutive figures who walked inside them, holding up the great weight of the statues. Holmes left Gorashar to watch the full procession and, passing through the old city gate, he proceeded in a northerly direction towards the British Residence.

The Residence lies outside the old city walls, to the north, in an area that had once been infertile swamp land and was considered by the Nepalese to be an unlucky and inauspicious area, haunted by demons. What events lay behind these quaint superstitions are well hidden in the recesses of Nepalese history, said Holmes, but what was apparent even to a casual observer was that a succession of British Residents had turned the swamp into a small English paradise. The gardens were extraordinary and the Residence itself of the most pleasing dimensions. Much of this was the creation of Brian Hodgson, the second person to occupy the post of Resident, who, Holmes gathered, had spent over twenty years in Katmandu. It was he who was first charged with turning the cursed spot given by the Nepalese into a place where our representative could live.