The Oriental Casebook of Sherlock Holmes

by Riccardi, Ted

  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.

  As he entered the Residence, Holmes was greeted by one Shiv Shankar, the chief pandit. He informed him that Mr. Richardson was still quite ill but that he would see him immediately, if only briefly. Holmes saw a look of deep concern on the pandit’s face as he accompanied me to the rear of the Residence.

  Richardson was seated in the sun on the terrace. As Holmes came into view, he turned and motioned him to a chair next to him. Whatever his initial appearance was, Holmes could not judge, but it was apparent that he had been extremely ill, for he was emaciated, and of a deadly pallor. Probably a thin man to begin with, his recent illness had only made him appear almost skeletal.

  “Please excuse me, Panditji, and welcome. I have not been well, and under the orders of the Resident Surgeon, Dr. Wright, I am not to exert myself at all, even to rise out of this chair for an honoured scholar such as yourself. I gather that you bring news of Mr. Grierson and Mr. Stein.”

  “I bring you warm greetings from both gentlemen,” said Holmes.

  “Ah,” he said, with a bit of effort. “Grierson! That ambitious young philologist, the one who is writing a book about all the languages of the Subcontinent! And Stein, whom I met in Kashmir. A funny little man, eh wot? With a funny little dog.”

  “But a man of intense energy and great intelligence,” replied Holmes.

  Holmes; mild contradiction seemed to disturb him. It was as if the reference to Stein’s energetic ways reminded him of his former self. He became silent. There was a further exchange of pleasantries for a few more minutes, but it was clear that the Resident’s energy had ebbed. Rather than overstay his welcome, Holmes took his leave and expressed the hope that they would have occasion to meet again soon. So weak had Richardson suddenly become that he was unable to reply, and he bade Holmes good-bye with a feeble wave of his hand. In his eyes Holmes saw a look of despair, as if he were bidding farewell to any connections with the outside world that he once might have had.

  “I returned to Pandit Shiv Shankar’s study, where I spent the afternoon with him and a Nepalese scholar, one Gunanand, working on the philological tasks that Grierson had supposedly assigned to me. This work consisted of having the Biblical text, the parable of the prodigal son, translated into the various languages and dialects of the Himalayas. This work, simple but lengthy, gave me the excuse to pay repeated visits to the Residence. I also became acquainted with the work that the pandits were doing themselves. They were immersed in the innocent world of Oriental scholarship, preparing a translation into English of a mythological history of Nepal written by Gunanand’s grandfather, a translation which had been commissioned by the resident surgeon, Dr. Wright.”

  In several additional visits to the Residence in the following weeks, Holmes learned that the only other people living there, beyond the servants and the guards, were the aforementioned Dr. Wright and Resident Richardson’s daughter, Lucy, who had arrived only recently. She appeared to have had a very difficult journey, for since her arrival she had hardly ventured forth from her rooms except to spend brief periods with her father.

  It was not long, however, before Holmes’s initial surmise about who might be present in the Residence received some corroboration. One morning, after a brief discussion of philological matters with his pandit friends, he busied himself with copying out in Roman transcription a Tibetan version of the parable of the prodigal son. As he sat there thus engaged, a tall, thin Englishman entered the room. Holmes recognised him immediately: it was the face that he had glimpsed ever so briefly by candlelight, the face of the accomplice in Rizzetti’s murder. The pandits rose and motioned to me that he should rise as well. He was then formally introduced to Daniel Wright, the resident surgeon. Holmes gave him the usual Indian greeting.

  “Welcome, Panditji,” he replied. “I hear that you have become part of this learned circle.”

  “My knowledge is like a small drop in the sea of the milk of their intelligence,” said Holmes.

  “Your modest response no doubt conceals its own sea of wisdom,” Wright answered coolly.

  His eyes examined Holmes intently, but he seemed to find nothing unusual. Holmes returned to his scholarly tasks, and he began to engage the pandits with regard to their historical translations. But as Wright had spoken, Holmes had registered Wright’s every word, every intonation, every motion of his body.

  “I was suddenly alive to presences so vicious, Watson, that instinct called forth the most acute reactions of the brain. Surely, now, the murderer of Rizzetti himself could not be far away, and my mind was already preparing for the inevitable encounter. I had passed muster for the time being, but I had no illusions that, with longer contact, something, some small slip, some unconscious movement, would give me away.”

  At this moment, Holmes let forth a great sigh. His eyes looked into the distance as he recalled the events in that faraway land.

  “Pray, continue, Holmes,” I said, fearful that he would stop.

  He rose from his seat and began pacing slowly back and forth in front of me as he spoke, his hands together behind his back. I watched him intently as he relived this strange adventure. His body became cat-like as he walked to and fro, the grace of his physical motions matching the logic of his narrative. A young woman appeared at the door, he said. It was Lucy Richardson. She informed Dr. Wright that her father wished to see him, and Wright left at once.

  “And who is this gentleman?” she asked, referring to me but addressing her question to Shiv Shankar.

  “‘This is a very learned gentleman who is spending some time with us. He is Pandit Kaul, of Kashmir.”

  Holmes bowed.

  “Ah, yes,” she said, “my father told me that he had met you several days ago. Welcome. I have just arrived and would benefit from your knowledge. Perhaps you might join us for tea. I would so like to
hear about your country, for I would like to visit there once my father’s health improves. And perhaps I might learn about this country and its languages as well.”

  “I am at your service, Miss Richardson. I would be most happy to join you and provide whatever assistance you might desire.”

  “Please join us at four on the terrace,” she said.

  Holmes bowed again as she departed.

  At tea that afternoon were Lucy and the Resident, whose health seemed to have improved somewhat. He talked warmly about his daughter and how happy he was that she could visit him. Holmes talked mostly about Kashmir, they about England, of which Holmes of course had to feign no firsthand knowledge. Dr. Wright appeared several times to check on Mr. Richardson. He seemed preoccupied and took little notice of Holmes’s presence. Holmes continued to observe him closely, particularly his ministrations to Richardson, but he noticed nothing untoward. Richardson seemed stronger and in better health than when he first met him and appeared to be in no immediate danger.

  “Miss Richardson at one point asked me to accompany her to an adjoining garden. We spoke for some time about my work, but several times she expressed great concern for her father’s health. I told her that I would help in any way that I could, for I professed to have a knowledge of indigenous plant remedies and the diseases to which they related. Katmandu was filled with rare plants, I said, of both beneficent and deadly varieties.”

  As they returned to the veranda, it was already dusk, and night was about to fall. Miss Richardson went directly to where her father was seated. As she approached him, however, he sat up suddenly, a look of intense fear on his face visible in the twilight:

  “He’s there! He’s there! He’s come back!”

  He pointed towards the far end of the garden. Holmes looked there but saw nothing.

  Richardson had gone white. His breath came in fast gasps, and Holmes feared that he might expire on the spot. Dr. Wright appeared from the Residence and quickly administered a potion that seemed to calm him almost at once.

  “We’ll have no more of that,” said Wright. “If there is any more excitement here, I shall have to confine you to your room and to prohibit all visitors.”

  The Resident did not respond but seemed contrite. Several servants appeared and carried the sick man to his room. Turning to Holmes, Dr. Wright said, “I am sorry for the incident. The Resident is very ill and appears to be having hallucinations, but these are common with the severe fever that he suffers from.”

  Holmes nodded as if in sympathy, and said that it was time for him to depart. As he took his leave, Lucy Richardson turned and said, “Mr. Kaul, I wonder if you would allow me to benefit from your knowledge of the religion of the Hindoos. Tomorrow I plan a tour of the Shrine of the Sleeping Vishnu. Would it be presumptuous to ask if you might accompany me?”

  “I would be most happy to do so,” said Holmes.

  He bowed to the Resident Surgeon and took his leave. A flicker of annoyance passed over Wright’s face as Holmes accepted Miss Richardson’s invitation, but the doctor hid his emotions instantly. Holmes returned to the hotel.

  “The mystery had continued to deepen. How had someone like Wright become a surgeon in the Residency? And where was the mastermind of it all, the murderer of Rizzetti? And what was the nature of the Resident’s illness? And what of his hallucinations? Or had he seen something real? I decided at that moment to take my friend Gorashar into my confidence concerning the events that I had just witnessed. I asked him to make some discreet inquiries. Gorashar was disturbed by my account and by the implications of my questions, but he agreed to find the answers I needed at once. He also told me that many Nepalese were very disturbed by the rumours that they had heard concerning the appearance of ghostly apparitions in the Residence, for such appearances often were considered to be portents of impending disaster.”

  Holmes stopped his pacing. He sat down and fumbled in his slipper for his pipe and tobacco. He lit up, puffing slowly as the sweet aroma of his favourite mix began to fill the room. He sat lost in thought for a few moments.

  The following morning he met Miss Richardson at the gate of the Residence. She was accompanied by one of the guards provided by the Nepalese government, and a maidservant. They must have appeared a strange couple, said Holmes—this beautiful young woman with an aging pandit—but they paid no attention to the curious looks they received along the way. It was one of those bright mornings in early February, he said, when the mist has burned off more quickly, and the sunshine is stronger, a definite prelude to the hot season that is to come. They began their walk to the Sleeping Vishnu, a shrine that lies at the very northern end of the Valley. The road is no more than a dirt path once one passes a half mile or so from the Residence. About halfway, they decided to rest in a bamboo grove along the way known as the Bansbari. Lucy Richardson by now had asked Holmes much about Kashmir. He spoke for several minutes about that other Himalayan valley, and did reasonably well, he thought, for one who had never visited the place. He had prepared for far more trenchant questioning on the subject than Lucy Richardson’s simple requests afforded, however. When he finished, she became quite pensive.

  “I suppose that you will be returning quite soon?” she asked finally.

  Holmes replied that he had no definite plans at the moment beyond the completion of his assignment in Katmandu. He did not know when he would be returning home.

  “I too am here for an indefinite stay. I fled England, Panditji, for I could no longer endure the situation that had come to pass in my mother’s home. May I burden you with the tale?”

  A terrible sadness had come over her face, and Holmes could see from it that she had no one else to whom she could turn. It was, of course, precisely what he had hoped, for he had suspected that part of the mystery lay in her family’s history, particularly in that of her father.

  “It would in no way burden me. I would be most happy to listen,” he said.

  Holmes’s face reflected the eagerness with which he awaited the story that Lucy Richardson was to relate to him. I listened, transfixed by the story. It was almost as though London, our rooms, even I, had ceased to exist.

  Lucy said that her early years were spent in India, in Indore, where her father had his first post. When he was appointed Resident in Nepal, she was twelve years old. She was as happy as a child could be, but because there were no schools it was decided that she should return to England. Her mother had also decided to return, for, though the subject was never discussed, Lucy sensed a growing estrangement between her mother and father. There was little talk between them, and though they never bickered in her presence, she often overheard heated exchanges between them from behind their bedroom door. Parting from her father was very difficult, for it was not clear when he would be able to visit England, or indeed when she would be able to return to Nepal, if ever.

  “We left Nepal some months after our arrival. The journey to England was a sad one for me, and England soon became a dreary bore. We settled in my mother’s home near Oxford, and I attended local schools until Mother decided that I should attend a boarding school near London. The school was a relief from my mother’s constant overbearing presence, for it was very clear to both of us that we did not get along well. Holidays were more than enough time for us to spend together. As I grew older, I began to regard my mother with more sympathy than before, for I realised that she was a very lonely woman. Letters came regularly from my father directed to me instead of to her. All she received from him was a perfunctory note scrawled at the bottom, while the messages to me were filled with lively descriptions of Nepal and its people, and the exciting life that he seemed to lead. I was particularly envious of his travels outside the Katmandu Valley, which the Rana now permitted more frequently.”

  It was about a year ago, she said, that she began to notice a change in her mother. She seemed brighter and happier than Lucy had ever known her to be. And one night, she learned the reason. She had taken a lover, a Mr. Morrison, a
gentleman who had been introduced to her by one of her very old friends, Ellen Maupertuis, a woman who had married a Dutch diplomat and was then living in Amsterdam. Her friend had met Morrison first on the island of Sumatra and had found him charming. He had travelled much and was said to run a business in Amsterdam which imported rare woods from the Dutch East Indies. Lucy’s mother had invited him to dine with them occasionally and at the beginning Lucy rather liked him, even though she made clear to her mother that she thought her conduct was reprehensible. He was tall and handsome and possessed what Lucy came to recognise as an incredible intellect. He seemed to be particularly strong in mathematics, but he could discuss almost any subject intelligently. Her mother was entranced. There was little that Lucy could do, and little that she could argue with when her mother told her that she had learned that her father had taken a Sherpa woman from the eastern mountains of Nepal as his mistress

  “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.”