“As I left, I noticed that a whole group of them had been placed in a small shed near the shore in preparation for their transport as labourers to the Dutch Indies. I was told by our captain that there were one hundred ten men and women stuffed into the small shed, over one hundred “Tongas” to be taken from their island to unknown places. How many of them arrived at their destination alive?”
He stopped for a moment in thought.
“Later, on my way north from Ceylon,” he continued, “I stopped in Agra, reliving the horrible events that Small related to us, of the Mutiny, of his fellow conspirators, and the murder of the merchant Achmed. My interest in certain cases never leaves me, and in Jaisalmer I saw many of the same small brown Andamaners at work in the mines of the Frantzi, the slaves of Captain Fantôme and her ilk. It was here that I began to distinguish between the scent of the criminal and the stench of empire.”
He grinned as he tossed the morning paper in my direction. There on the front page was the report of the grisly murder of the Viceroy, Lord Elgin, on his visit to the Andamans. The shocking crime had been committed by a Punjabi imprisoned in the islands. He had acted so quickly and with such force that the Viceroy and his party were taken completely unaware. The Viceroy himself mumbled something about a slight pain in his back and fell forwards, dead in the water.
“What a ghastly affair, Holmes,” I said.
“Yes, Watson, another gruesome crime, pointless in itself, but one that will have various repercussions. I have no doubt that Government will, as it usually does, act in such a way as to make matters worse. You see, Watson, it is no longer a battle from which I hope to emerge victorious. I fight simply because I must, and it is in the knowledge that there is no final victory to be had that I find solace. Shall we say, dear doctor, that we are all entrapped in an iron cage, the exit from which is hidden from us? I sense an east wind and the coming of a dark polar night. But let us not despair, lest we do nothing at all.”
He said no more. He removed his shoes and went out to the beach, where I saw him striding rapidly in the surf, his trousers rolled up to his knees, his shirt hanging loosely about his waist. For the moment, I thought, he seemed free of all care, waiting only for the world to engage him once more.
JOHN WATSON, M.D.
My interest in Sherlock Holmes was aided and abetted first by Merrily Weisbord, a gifted writer and a good friend; by Michael Haggiag, astute critic and writer of great imagination; by Bob Loomis, the great jewel in the crown of Random House; and by Peter Riva, whose polymathic prestidigitations still fill me with wonder.
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The Oriental Casebook of Sherlock Holmes Page 37
