The Oriental Casebook of Sherlock Holmes: Nine Adventures from the Lost Years

by Ted Riccardi

  “I shall do my best,” he said, “but I shall work alone. I should like, however, to visit Madame Levi, before I depart.”

  He was led directly to the guest house, where he found Levi’s wife staring mournfully out the window. As he entered with the Maharajah, she began to weep. She was not a pretty woman, but one of rather coarse features and of a kind of stoutness that one associates with French peasant stock. It was clear as soon as one saw her eyes, red and swollen from her fits of grief, that she had nothing to do with her husband’s disappearance. Because her English was poor, they spoke in French. She said that she knew no more than what she had told the Maharajah, that her husband returned from his visit with Pandit Kaul, mentioned to her that he had much work left before their departure, and after lunch retired to his desk to work, where he was when she retired to take her afternoon rest.

  Holmes then asked her permission to examine Levi’s desk and the work that he was doing before he left. There were no notes to his wife of any kind, no messages, nothing to indicate where he had gone. But he had indicated to Holmes in their conversation that he was still preoccupied with Changu, its treasury, and its pillar inscription. As Holmes looked at his work, however, he noticed that he had placed a large exclamation point next to a line in the inscription, a line that he remembered, and a question mark next to one that he had not seen before, one which must have been found in the excavated portion of the pillar. It seemed that he had most emphatically understood the first, but not the second.

  Holmes paused for a moment. “I must risk boring you, Watson, for the words here are important to the solution. The line with Levi’s exclamatory mark read in Sanscrit in part:

  . . . raja udyanam iva tridivam gatah.

  These words mean literally, “the king went to the other world as if he had gone to the pleasure garden.”

  “How odd,” I said, not a little confused, but amused as well, as the strange words rippled off his tongue mellifluously.

  “But the line questioned by Levi,” he continued, “read:

  ahsevinahsenagartihb ahsevarpunhsivrihab

  “Its meaning? Well, my dear Watson, I was for the moment baffled. It made no sense, and appeared almost as a meaningless series of syllables. So supple and flexible is Sanscrit, however, that, with enough time, a variety of translations might be possible. In any case, I surmised that Levi had seen a connection between the two lines and that he had gone to Changu to investigate. I also reminded myself of a general truth that had become apparent to me during my stay in Nepal: that nothing there was simple.”

  By this time my mind was reeling from the complexity as well as the speed of Holmes’s account. That part of it was in Sanscrit did not reassure me in my attempt to understand what was happening.

  “I am more than a bit confused, my dear Holmes. A king was apparently murdered fifteen hundred years ago, and a French scholar has disappeared before your eyes. Yet somehow their fates are intertwined. And somehow the fate of both men is buried in some difficult lines of an inscription in Sanscrit.”

  “Excellent, Watson, excellent. You have seen through to the crux. In the first line, Levi had seen something that no previous commentator had seen.

  “And what was that? Perhaps the king merely died of natural causes, and it means only that he died as if he had been at play, at perhaps some wanton sport,” I ventured.

  “And that is the way it was often construed in Nepal. But Dharmadeva was a paragon of virtue, probably incapable of the kind of vice that would do him in. Still, there was something strange about the words, I thought, as if through their very strangeness the poet were pointing to something unusual. Perhaps there was a clue to his death in this phrase, perhaps a pun, a dual meaning. All of this, however, I retraced in my mind when I saw the words marked in Levi’s manuscript. Had he realised something that I had not? As to the other line, he had not deciphered it, nor could I!”

  And yet, the inscription and his notes to it were the only clues Holmes had. He took the paper with his notes from his desk, folded it and put it in his pocket for further study.

  “I should say here, Watson, that I had in that piece of paper all that I needed to locate Levi, but I had not seen through to the end. Without knowing where it would lead, I decided to go to Changu, following what in my best judgement might have been Levi’s footsteps. Reassuring the frightened Madame Levi, I left the guest house and walked directly north, taking a path that led me through the ancient communities of Hadigaon and Bishal Nagar.”

  By now the heavy rains had subsided, and the sky began to clear. In his mind’s eye, Holmes went over Levi’s appearance in their meeting. He also reviewed his words, recalling particularly those concerned with the jewels of the ancient Nepalese kings. Perhaps greed, coupled with his outspoken contempt for the temple priests had placed Levi in an awkward, even dangerous, position. Had he found the great treasure house that he had mentioned? Had he entered it?

  Crossing several streams, Holmes arrived at the Buddhist site of Bodhnath, his first place of inquiry. Here he questioned some beggars as to whether they had seen a foreigner. They said that indeed they had, that he was dressed in Nepalese clothes, and that he was walking east along the main road when they last saw him. This corroborated the Maharajah’s information and extended it a bit. Holmes was overjoyed, for he knew that his decision to proceed to Changu was the correct one.

  By now, it was close to sunset, and he quickened his pace. The road entered the Gokarna Forest, which was strangely empty, silent except for the sounds of monkeys and birds. Light flickered from the hearth of several small houses, and knew that the road would be plunged into darkness before reached his destination. He pushed on, confident now that if he were to find Levi, he would find him, dead or alive, at Changu.

  Just after a sharp turn in the main road, where it continues north to the small town of Sankhu, he took a fork to the right. This path, if memory served, led directly to the Manohara River and eventually to the Changu temple. He climbed a sleep hill, then descended past a small village. All was dark, and the village appeared as if suddenly deserted.

  When he reached the river, Holmes could see across it to the hill atop which the temple sits. The river was greatly swollen by the rains, and it was only with a great deal of effort that he managed to cross it. The water was warm but thoroughly unpleasant, for it was filled with all sorts of debris brought down from the mountains by the rains. Things of all sizes and shapes, of all consistencies, touched and flowed into him. Thoroughly wet, soaked to the skin, he staggered across and, without stopping even for a breath, began the steep ascent to the temple.

  It was almost dark, but even in the ensuing twilight, Holmes was soon aware that a large number of people were ahead of him on the path, and that pilgrims were streaming into the temple. The villages he had passed through were dark and deserted for a reason: their inhabitants were on their way to Changu with everyone who lived nearby. Something of importance was about to transpire.

  In the darkness, Holmes fortunately passed unnoticed. Once at the top of the hill, he worked himself slowly into the crowd that now sat tightly arranged around the temple. The priests, in white robes, their heads newly shaven, were leading a chant that he recognised at once as an ancient funeral hymn. Indeed, a cremation pyre had been prepared in the front of the temple. The priests, three in number, had opened the inner sanctum of the temple, exposing to view the golden image of the god of Changu Narayan himself. As they chanted, several men carried in an effigy of a man, dressed in Nepalese attire, amazing at first look in its likeness to a human figure, but one that was clearly a mannequin made of straw. The figure was brought to the priests, who chanted over it in Sanscrit for a number of minutes. Then it was placed in a supine position on the pyre, its hands crossed as if in prayer. It was only when the figure was lying down that Holmes noticed that it wore on its face a pair of European spectacles, very much like those that the French savant had worn to their meeting. It was the first clue he had upon
his arrival, one which made him fear that he had arrived too late.

  The crowd grew silent at this moment and stretched forwards, not wishing to miss even the smallest detail of what was then to take place. Large drums began a slow, steady rhythm, and the priests continued their chant. Then, one of the men who had carried the figure to the pyre stepped forwards and, walking over to the head, smashed its face, including the spectacles, with a rock. Then, taking a torch from a member of the crowd, he lit the pyre. The straw figure went up in flames almost in seconds, and in a moment nothing at all was left.

  Having watched the fire devour its victim, the crowd vanished silently into the night. Holmes remained behind, crouched in the dark behind a wooden door from which he could watch the priests. The three priests, placing the idol of Changu back in its sacred location, closed the inner sanctum. Then, passing a few rupees to the men who had carried the straw effigy, they each left by a different gate. The men, counting their wages, also quickly dispersed, and Holmes was left alone on the temple grounds.

  Very much aware now that all might be lost, he feared that he might have lost the track to Levi. The ritual he had just watched was disquieting, for it was an unusual one, obviously marking a death, and, if his suspicions were correct, the death so marked was that of Sylvain Levi.

  The moon was bright, almost overhead now, and he could see clearly. There was almost no sound, except for the bats that flew everywhere, hovering constantly near his head.

  As he debated his next move, he suddenly heard soft footsteps and the sound of voices from behind the temple. He moved slowly in the dark to where he could see to the other side. There in the dark he made out an old man and woman in Nepalese dress walking towards the pyre. The woman carried something in her arms, possibly an infant. The man, lame in his right leg, staggered slowly forwards. He was assisted by a half-naked boy, the one whom Holmes had seen scaling the pillar. He could see from a distance that there was something wrong with the man’s left arm as well, for it hung from his shoulder loosely. Having come to the front of the temple, the man sat on one of the temple steps. Holmes could see now that the woman was carrying a child. Handing it to her companion, she began poking and sifting through the still burning embers left by the cremation. Few words were exchanged between them, and occasionally a soft cry came from the infant.

  “I recognised them all now,” said Holmes. “These were, I had come to know from my previous visits, a family of untouchables, known as Chame, persons who must scavenge to live. Forced to subsist at the margins of Hindoo civilisation, they were also known by the Sanscrit term sandhyaloka, “people of the twilight,” those who appeared in the evening and disappeared at dawn, performing their assigned tasks all but unseen and unheard in the half light of morning and the half dark of night.”

  A piece of good fortune, he thought, for these people well might be his last hope of discovering what had happened to Levi. If his calculations were correct, Levi had arrived in the vicinity of the temple just at sunset the day before. A bit of luck and they would have seen him.

  “When she had finished her task, the woman took the few pice (rupees) that she had found amidst the ashes and turned them over to her companion. Taking the child once more, they began to retrace their steps, leaving the temple by its eastern or back gate. I followed them quietly. When they had proceeded about fifty yards down the slope, I overtook them and, seizing them both from behind, firmly but not so roughly as to harm them or the babe, I forced them to the ground. So surprised were they that they both let out a cry, which I was able to cut short by a quick reassurance that I meant them no harm. The boy tried to run off, but I grabbed him by the arm, and he stopped.”

  “They spoke in an archaic form of the Nepalese tongue,” said Holmes, “filled with those pathetic forms of respect that mark the great fear that the illiterate outcasts have for their literate superiors. In a short time, however, they were sufficiently reassured by my repeated words that I meant them no harm that they were able to devote some of their attention to my inquiries. I also had placed several silver coins in their hands, more than they had seen in a lifetime of scavenging, and this too had the needed calming effect.

  “I explained to them my search, and at first I met with resistance. They had seen no one. After a moment, however, the woman told me how sick and hungry the infant was, and that it was their grandchild, whose mother had died the previous day when the child was but a month old. I told them that I would give them sufficient assistance for the child, but that they must help me as quickly as possible. I placed several more coins in their hands, and the old man, rising to his feet, told the old woman to stay where she was. He motioned to me to follow.”

  “Despite his age and infirmities, the old man walked down the hill quickly, speaking in a low voice as we descended. The boy followed him close by. In a short time, they came to a clearing, filled with large wildflowers that glistened in the moonlight. In the center was an ancient banyan tree. From it were hanging a variety of votive objects—even ordinary pots and pans—all brought there in honour of the dead. Suddenly, the boy left the old man’s side and climbed the tree. There, halfway up on a central limb, there hung a silver disc. The boy turned it slightly, then jumped down and returned to the old man.

  “Your friend is not far away, but by now it is too late. This is the udyana, the pleasure garden of our ancient kings. Your friend has gone to the Tridivam, the treasure house of death, from which he cannot exit. He is dead by now and will not return.”

  The words he used chilled Holmes’s blood, for in the archaic form in which they issued from his mouth, they were very close to the ancient words in the inscription of Manadeva. It was apparent that Levi, unable to contain his desire to know, had waited until dark and set out on his fateful journey alone. He had followed the path of the ancient king Dharmadeva.

  Seeing the look of despair on his face, the old man drew Holmes closer to the tree. There, in the dark, he could see that there was a shrine built into its trunk. A stone image of the god Vishnu, in the form of one of his avatars, the Wild Boar, stood astride the universe, a figure of the goddess Earth sitting in comfort on his shoulder.

  “This is the pleasure garden, the udyana of the ancient kings,” the old man repeated. “Below it is the Tridivam, the other world, or heaven, where their treasures are stored. In ancient times, only the kings knew how to enter and how to leave, for as soon as one person enters, the entrance closes and can only be opened from within The secret was passed from father to son in the royal line, and among us, the twilight people, from father to son. King Dharmadeva entered often, but, for reasons we do not know, one day he did not return. And so the secret among kings died with him. Since that time a few, greedy for the treasure that lies inside, have come to understand how to enter, but none has ever returned. They have all died within. Your friend entered. He too has not returned. I know, for we showed him how.”

  “Then show me how he entered, for there is no time to waste,” Holmes admonished.

  The old man obeyed me.

  “Lift the Earth from her place,” he said, pointing to the figure sitting on Vishnu’s shoulder.

  Holmes did as he said, raising the figure with his hand. It moved upwards at his touch, then of itself fell back in place. There was suddenly a deafening noise, as if a giant spring had been released by the movement of the image of the Earth. Then the great statue of Vishnu moved, ever so slowly, at first seemingly of its own accord, swinging rapidly inward to the left, leaving a small opening in front of it, large enough for one man to crawl down into.

  The old man pointed to the black hole.

  “That is the path to the Tridivam, to the treasure house, and to death, the path of your friend,” he said. “If you follow, the opening will close as soon as your head passes within. Even if I open it again, you will not be able to return by this path. The return is by another way. I entered once, but out of fear I climbed out before my head was covered. I escaped, but Vishnu bit me and
took all the strength from my arm, and I no longer remembered how to return.”

  For a moment, Holmes was taken aback by the speech of the old man, for, with his own fear of the gods, the old man’s words would have filled any ordinary mortal with terror.

  “My dilemma was immediately apparent, Watson,” said Holmes calmly. “I was sure that given enough time I would be able to extricate myself from this so-called treasure house, but I had no way to judge what lay below, nor how much time I would have before I succumbed either to lack of air or water or some preordained scheme of death arranged by the bloodthirsty and greedy despots of the past. No sound emanated from the dark space below, and I presumed that Levi was either dead, too weak, or too far away to be heard. Should I enter or should I report back what I then knew to the Maharajah?”

  As he stood there in thought, he noticed that the moon had risen to the point where its rays were beginning to hit the temple. A minute later the moonlight, filtering through the leaves of the tree, struck the disc. As if by magic, it fell reflected onto the third eye of the statue of Vishnu and then the figure of Ganesh, striking his right hand. The astronomy of the temple, its relation to sun and moon, to night and day, struck Holmes, and he suddenly realised what he had to do in order to understand the meaning of the second line of the inscription. He took out Levi’s notes and read the cryptic line backwards, from right to left. It read in perfect clarity:

  bahirvishnupravesha bhitraganeshanivesha

  which means simply: “Enter through the Vishnu outside; Leave by the Ganesh inside.”

  If not a full explanation, at least it provided a clue that exiting had something to do with a statue of Ganesh inside. Holmes looked around. He was alone. The old man had taken the opportunity of his distraction to disappear. The opening was still there.

  “At that moment, I chose to enter, knowing full well that I might be wrong, that I did not know with any certainty how I would escape if the opening closed above me, but knowing also that I had been through narrow escapes before, and that my brain had at the last moment saved me.”