The Oriental Casebook of Sherlock Holmes

by Riccardi, Ted

  As he spoke now, Holmes became greatly agitated, for he was reliving the final events of his long tale with an even greater vividness than before.

  “‘I walked slowly up the few steps to the temple compound. It was almost dark. There was the usual evening religious activity, the ringing of bells, offerings, the wailing of infants. As I entered the courtyard, I tried to locate my Gurkha confederates, but could not. I could only hope that they would arrive in time.”

  Holmes acted the part of the English tourist, curious, befuddled, without direction, for he assumed that the culprit would find him easily. As his eyes grew accustomed to the darkness, he could see the usual conglomeration of human derelicts that is so often present at Hindoo institutions of this kind—the crippled, the limbless, the dumb, the starving. In the flashing of the oil lamps, he could also make out the temple, a gaudy hideous affair, covered with skeletons, images of horrible spirits, and monsters. In the main sanctuary itself stood the headless goddess herself. Suddenly, a young girl, one of the many derelicts, dumb, dressed in filthy rags, accosted him and began tugging at his coat, pulling him toward a large peepul tree that was situated at the back of the shrine. In the darkness he made out a figure seated in yogic posture under the tree. His face was hidden by a shawl draped over the upper half of his body. The dumb child pulled Holmes to him, and he motioned to him to sit down in front of him. Two oil lamps placed in front of him provided the only light.

  “Welcome, Mr. Sherlock Holmes.” The voice had a pronounced foreign accent, and he hissed my name through his teeth. “I was expecting you.”

  “So,” said Holmes, “we meet again. If I am not mistaken, I sit before Karol Lissonevitch Rastrakoff, one-time member of the Oriental Institute at St. Petersburg, now secret agent for the Tsar in central Asia, an infamous figure throughout the murky underworld of Asia. We tangled in Tibet, Rastrakoff, and I would judge the contest a draw. Your message of blood was clear to me almost immediately, for your initials and part of your last name conveniently spelled ka and li, and rastra, the word for ‘nation’ in the native tongue. I shall not waste time or mince words: I want the return of the file, for which I am willing to offer a reasonable sum and your safe passage out of India.”

  “Mr. Holmes, Mr. Holmes, please, dear sir, you move too quickly.”

  As he talked, he lowered the shawl from his face, and Holmes saw once again the cruel countenance that recorded so many evil deeds.

  “A most impressive jump into my rickshaw, Rastrakoff. My compliments.”

  Rastrakoff smiled. “It was nothing,” he said, “with our training. But we have more important matters before us. First, let me explain to you that I have no desire to bargain for the file. It is already on its way to its intended destination. It was of the utmost importance to my employers, and I stopped at nothing to obtain it. The deaths of Maxwell and Hamilton were unavoidable, for they entered the office unexpectedly in the evening after hours. They interrupted me in my search. I was able to hide when they entered, but then they began a long interminable conversation, punctuated by Maxwell’s loud accusations. I had little time to waste, and at the height of their argument I shot them both, intending at first to make the crime into one of murder and suicide. I then found the file. It was while I was seeking it that I thought of the grand opportunity that had been thrown my way. The file, once I had it, was my triumph. But if I could cause the Viceroy to think of this murder as an act of terror against Britain, then I would have caused even greater havoc among our enemies. I decided then to make the crime look like an act of thugee.”

  “A foolish move,” said Holmes,” for it did not look like such an act at all. Thugee victims are strangled alive, Rastrakoff.”

  “Only one such as you would be aware of such niceties. Your countrymen are pitifully ignorant of the people they rule. It was only after I severed their heads that I decided the third part of my plan: to lead you here, for I had recognised you immediately upon your first visit to Maxwell. I reversed the heads, added the word rastra to my message and arranged my initials so that they could be read in two different ways. I knew that you would read the message instantly. I gather now that I have been completely successful. The Viceroy has put all troops on the alert, arrested most of the political leaders of Bengal—and all on the eve of the visit of Edward the Seventh, the so-called King-Emperor.”

  He stopped then and looked at me, his eyes narrowing evilly. “And finally, I shall rid the world of Sherlock Holmes.”

  Rastrakoff squealed the last few words in a high falsetto, and the quick action that followed almost took Holmes by surprise. Rastrakoff lunged forwards, a dagger in hand. Holmes fell back pinned to the ground, the point of the knife now grazing his chest. He was unable to free himself. Suddenly, he was covered by a shower of warm liquid that he at first took for his own blood. He looked up, however, to see Rastrakoff’s severed head hurtling through the air, and he knew that the blood that covered him came from his severed jugular. One of the Gurkhas, aware of the situation and Holmes’s helplessness, acting instinctively and with lightning speed had rid the world of one of its archfiends.

  Holmes’s eyes were now ablaze as he recalled the perilous situation into which he had fallen. I listened in amazed silence and cold fear, for even though he was before me he had related the last events with such realism that I thought he might have been slain before me.

  “The rest, unfortunately, is history. I reported immediately to the Viceroy that Rastrakoff was dead, that he could call off the emergency, that the file was already on its way to its destination, and that we had failed to recover it. When hostilities broke out between Russia and Japan thereafter, we knew that the documents had been used for their evil purposes. That short war, Watson, the first lost by a European power to an Asian one, will have untold repercussions for the white race as we move further into this century.”

  “What an incredible story, Holmes. And to think that Maxwell and his brother were killed needlessly.”

  “Yes, Watson. Though there was more to that part of the story, a part which had to wait until my return to England. It was shortly before my meeting with you, Watson. You will recall that I was disguised as an old book dealer when we first met after my return?”

  “Yes,” said I.

  “A few days before, I had journeyed to Yorkshire in the same guise, to find Rose Hamilton, the mother of James.”

  “Why on earth did you want to do that?” said I in great puzzlement.

  “Because I had a hunch, a mere suspicion, that Reginald and James were not brothers. I had examined them in death very carefully and my knowledge of skeletal and craniological types had made me suspect that it was unlikely that they were related at all. And in fact there was something in Hamilton’s face that struck me. There was a clear resemblance to someone, but it was not to Maxwell, though there was a surface similarity that had struck his wife early on. As soon as I returned to England, I went to Wyck Rissington in disguise, located the old Hume estate, the natal home of Lady Maxwell, and then found the house where James Hamilton had grown up. It was now an abandoned shack. His mother had died several years before in an alcoholic fever. Her place had been boarded up by a man in the village so that it would not be easily vandalised. I entered the hut one night, prying off the boards on a back window. I spent several hours looking through the woman’s possessions. There was a small metal box in one of the drawers of an old cabinet that had been hidden amidst her clothes. Inside it was a small diary. It contained the information I had been hoping for. An entry, dated 5 June 1865, read: “My little son, to whom I have given the name James, was born to me one week ago. His father is Jeremy Hume, who refuses to recognise him.”

  “Good lord,” I cried, “Hamilton, then, was Lady Maxwell’s half-brother!”

  “Precisely, my dear Watson. I had noticed the resemblance. Hence her father’s violent reaction when he found that an amorous relationship had developed between them. It was during the telling of her story that I init
ially became suspicious. Hume, a man of position, could not admit either to his family or publicly that his liaison with the wench Rose Hamilton had produced unwanted progeny. Hence his violent outbursts and the actions that followed.”

  “And what of Maxwell’s father, and the information conveyed to his son? Surely, Maxwell believed that Hamilton was his half-brother.”

  “I thought that this part of the case would be forever lost to us, since the last conversation between Maxwell and Hamilton was heard only by Rastrakoff. Its contents had died with all of them. Here again, however, my dear Watson, luck was with us, for another entry in Rose Hamilton’s diary made it clear that after the death of his wife, Humphrey Maxwell, Reginald’s father, did begin to visit her as well and to take solace in her arms. When Hume failed to recognise his son, or to support her, Rose Hamilton turned to Maxwell, claiming he was the boy’s father. Maxwell believed her, and secretly supported her and the child.”

  “Extraordinary,” said I.

  “Yes,” said Holmes, “as I look back the story is perhaps unique in your annals. One day you might bring it to public attention.”

  “Indeed, I might. And what of Lady Maxwell?”

  Holmes now looked out the window wistfully. He was silent for a moment. Then he said, “I wonder, Watson. I have often wondered.”

  THE CASE OF

  HODGSON’S GHOST

  IT WAS LATE IN MAY, 1894, THAT THE DEATH OF BRIAN Houghton Hodgson was announced in the London newspapers. One of the great Oriental scholars of the century, Hodgson passed away quietly in his sleep at his home in Aldersley at the age of ninety-four. His life had spanned, therefore, all but the last few years of the nineteenth century.

  It was on seeing his obituary that I decided to put together these few notes from my portfolio concerning Sherlock Holmes’s years in the Orient. In a curious way, Hodgson had played a major role in the singular events that I have set down here, but it was only after Holmes returned to England that he was to meet him in the flesh. My friend often spoke of the great scholar of Buddhism, and his lasting influence on the intellectual life of Europe.

  Brian Hodgson was born in 1801 in Cheshire. When he was twenty-one, he joined the Indian Civil Service and was first sent to Calcutta, where he held a junior post. Within the first few months of his arrival, however, it became clear to his superiors that the climate and other discomforts of Bengal were serious impediments to his health. He had lost considerable weight, and there was talk of sending him home. He was sent instead first to Almora in the Kumaon Himalaya, and when an opening appeared in Nepal, he was then transferred there with an appointment as assistant to the British Resident, Edward Gardner.

  In April, 1823, Hodgson left Almora for Katmandu. The journey was a difficult one. To reach the Nepalese capital, Hodgson had to brave the notorious jungles of the Tarai, where, in addition to the afflictions acquired in Bengal, he contracted one of the worst fevers of the globe, the aul, as it is known in those parts. After his arrival, he spent the first three weeks ill with a high fever that kept him to his bed. Gradually, he began to mend, due largely to the ministrations of Mrs. Gardner and the salubrious climate of the mountains.

  Upon his recovery, Hodgson rapidly became an energetic and trusted servant of the Company. So highly did his superiors regard him that Gardner, upon his retirement, recommended that he be appointed his successor. The recommendation was enthusiastically received in Calcutta, and Hodgson, not yet thirty, attained the coveted position of British Resident to the Court of Nepal.

  Hodgson was to remain twenty-one years in the post. During that time he pursued a double career. He was officially the Resident, representative of the East India Company to the Court of Nepal. In this capacity, he became an intimate of the court and its rulers, in particular of General Bhimsen Thapa, with whom he wielded considerable influence. At the same time, he pursued a private career of science, immersing himself tirelessly in every aspect of the life of the Himalayas, recording their history, languages, customs, and laws. His fame in Europe began with a series of papers on the little-known religion of the Buddhists, which formed the basis of European research for many decades.

  It was in 1844, however, that his policies and conduct came into direct conflict with those of Lord Ellenborough, then Governor-General of the Company. Hodgson was recalled, and rather than take the minor post that Ellenborough offered him in India, he resigned from the service and returned to England, where he devoted his time to scientific research on Asiatic subjects.

  A short time after Hodgson’s death, one night late in June of 1894, to be more precise, Holmes and I sat at home, quietly discussing his years of absence after the death of Moriarty. I remember the night vividly, for Holmes had been suffering from severe melancholia during the previous weeks, and those few evenings when he narrated his experiences granted him a brief respite from the black moods of depression that overwhelmed him.

  “You have mentioned on several occasions, Holmes, that you journeyed at one point to Katmandu in the forbidden kingdom of Nepal, but it has never been clear to me what you did there or how indeed you managed to enter the country at all.”

  Holmes smiled for the first time in many days.

  “There are few places, Watson, that affect one as much as Nepal. One of our countrymen has written that it would take the pen of a Ruskin or the brush of a Monet to do it justice, and in those judgements I must concur. The climate is salubrious, the people friendly and as handsome as the landscape. They, however, suffer under the heel of a harsh and backward regime, and though it is in the interest of the Empire to support the present Maharaja, there is no question that the people would throw off his tyrannical yoke were it not for the support and friendliness that Government finds it necessary to display in order to preserve our interests.”

  As he spoke, Holmes became more expansive, and I realised only then the affection in which he held his mountain friends.

  “As you may recall, Watson, from several previous adventures, I travelled in Tibet in the guise of a Scandinavian naturalist. I changed my identity, however, when I was ready to leave, and journeyed from Lhasa to Katmandu on foot disguised as a Tibetan lama. While resident in Tibet, I had acquired the Tibetan language and had studied sufficiently the native Buddhist religion that, should I choose to, I could be convincing in my expositions of doctrine to the lay folk of the country and to the lamas as well, some of whom I had bested in debate on any number of philosophical subjects. One day the Scandinavian explorer bade good-bye to his friends, and left. Coincident with his departure a lama from Ladakh arrived in Lhasa.”

  Holmes then recalled that he had been befriended by a Nepalese trader long resident in Lhasa, and it was with his caravan that he made the difficult journey south. The trader, a Newar of the Tuladhar caste, had lived in Tibet for many years. His name was Gorashar and he dealt in cloth and a variety of manufactured goods, including on occasion Russian weaponry. Holmes met him purely by accident shortly after his arrival, and they soon became friends. Gorashar returned home to Nepal every four years, and it was fortunate that one of his trips coincided with Holmes’s Tibetan sojourn. Gorashar warned him that he travelled at his own risk and that discovery in Katmandu would result in severe punishment. Holmes assured his friend that he was willing to bear the risk and that in any case his stay would be brief.

  The journey was difficult, more difficult than the one by which he had entered Tibet. From Lhasa they went to Shigatse, then to Gyantse, crossing the Tsangpo or Brahmaputra River in one of those strange boats of yak skin that the Tibetans have made from time immemorial. From this point they began the ascent to an altitude of fifteen thousand feet, a climb that strained the lungs of all.

  “Many of the animals refused to go further,” he said, “and we had to search for fresh replacements. This caused endless delays. We finally crossed the pass above Nyalam at nineteen thousand feet, moving then to the village of Khasa where we spent the night. On the following morning we crossed to Kodari,
resting there for the evening. The following day we began our descent toward the kingdom of Dolakha, a few days walk from Katmandu.”

  Holmes described the passing from Tibet into Nepal as a dramatic change. Though filled with astounding sights, Tibet is by and large a barren land of great immensity. Nothing there prepared him for the sight of the snowy heights of the Himalayas, the clear mountain streams that pass through them, or the lush vegetation that begins to appear as soon as one begins the descent.

  “To my knowledge, I was the first European to visit Dolakha, a forgotten kingdom of remarkable beauty, one even whose name is unknown to the civilised world. It was there that we began to recover from the rigours of our journey and I began to sense a well-being that I had not known before in my life.”

  I smiled inwardly, for my friend rarely allowed himself to display his emotions, but in speaking of Nepal there was an exultant tone in his voice that I had not heard in a long time. He seemed to divine my thoughts, for he said, rather sternly, “Although I have often been amused by your portrayal of me as a cold, calculating machine without emotion, I have chaffed a bit at it as well, for it is of course untrue in one sense. I have emotions. In that I am like all other men. But they are completely in check and at the service of my brain. In that I am perhaps like no other.”

  I was amused by his attempt to attribute to my rather paltry literary efforts his own attempts to present himself as a thinking machine, but I did not join him in argument here, for I did not wish to interrupt him. Seeing that I had nothing to say, he grew pensive for a moment, then continued, as I had hoped he would.