by Ben Stevens
I have already said that this frame was impressively styled. A great number of small, metallic fish, each joined by tail and mouth to two others. I wondered briefly as to what (if anything) this design symbolized; and then my thoughts were distracted as Holmes made a low noise in his throat, as though something he’d suspected had just been confirmed. But looking at the area of the frame he himself was examining, I could see nothing.
He’d brought the small bag of tools with him. Now he selected one thin, long instrument, and set to work loosening one of the metal bolts securing the mirror to the wooden wall!
This bolt with the slotted head, and then another, seemed to turn easily enough, given how long they’d surely been stuck in this wall. But Holmes – while tall and rather on the thin side – also had exceptional strength in his body. Doubtless, his powerful fingers holding the bladed instrument had a great part to play in just how easily those bolts appeared to turn.
‘Hold the mirror by its left side and bottom corner, if you please, Yoshida-sensei,’ requested Holmes. I hastened to obey. Obviously, he intended to remove this mirror completely from the wall.
‘Careful now… It will be heavy…’ Holmes cautioned, as supporting the corner of the mirror on his side with one hand, he used the other to remove the final bolt. We both gave a slight grunt as we took the weight of the mirror, and at Holmes’s instruction carried it over to one side of the wall, before setting it down as carefully as possible onto the floor.
Then Holmes picked up the lamp and shone it onto the area of the wall that had been behind the mirror. I gave a gasp of surprise. There was a cavity – a square-shaped recess in the wooden wall! It was approximately at chest-height, maybe twelve inches square… Holmes held the lamp closer to it and I saw that it was approximately the same measurement deep. It contained something: a thick length of bamboo, brown with age, stoppered both ends with a sort of wooden plug.
This piece of bamboo was, however, almost completely covered by thick cobwebs. As though it had been lying here, hidden behind this great mirror, from the time the temple itself had been built.
‘Holmes…’ I breathed, scarcely believing what I was seeing. What was this great mystery – how had Holmes realized about this hidden cavity and what it contained? And exactly what was inside this sealed piece of bamboo?
Holmes reached in with one thin hand, and brushing aside the cobwebs pulled out the piece of bamboo. His fingers tugged at one of the wooden plugs for a few moments; it came free with an effort and then my heart leapt slightly as Holmes produced a rolled sheet of ancient-looking brown paper.
It crackled slightly as he oh-so-cautiously unrolled it…
‘Careful, now – careful!’ he said in a fierce whisper, as in my excitement I held the lamp just a little too close to this piece of paper. Again, it took me a few moments to decipher some of the thickly-inked Chinese characters written; but this is what I read –
I am life
Beauty
And sometimes death
I destroy villages
And can defeat
Mountains
No man
May pass through me
Untouched
And yet
You must pass
Through me
Untouched
‘Another riddle!’ I said then. ‘I cannot understand it.’
‘We will put this mirror back,’ returned Holmes softly. ‘And then we will return to our room. I have much to think about.’
It took scarcely five minutes to return the mirror to its original position. Only before Holmes put the bolts back in place, he first returned the sheet of paper, in the stoppered length of bamboo, inside that cavity!
‘Holmes…?’ I couldn’t help but mutter.
‘We will leave things as we found them, Yoshida-sensei,’ said Holmes shortly. ‘Trust me.’
With the oil of the lamp beginning to run low, we finished quickly and made our way silently along several long corridors to our room. Inside, we made ready for bed and lay down. Holmes blew out the lamp. Only then did he consent to speak.
‘We are playing a most dangerous game, my dear friend,’ he declared, his voice sounding distant and thoughtful in the dark. ‘We were meant to discover just what exists behind that large, ornate mirror. That is why – I will tell you now – someone stuck a tiny piece of thread onto one part of the frame and also the wall, so that they could tell later if the mirror had been moved.
‘Note also the somewhat ‘excessive’ amount of cobwebs covering the piece of bamboo – taken from somewhere else and placed there by someone, in a deliberate but rather clumsy attempt to make us believe that we were the first to discover that hiding place behind the mirror.’
‘But who – why?’ I blurted.
Holmes sighed. ‘As for ‘who’ – that, at the moment, I do not know for certain. I have my suspicions, however… But despite what I said earlier, concerning what is written on the hanging scroll in the temple’s dining area, I now know I am not actually the first person to determine the true meaning of those words.’
‘But what is the true meaning of the words, Holmes-san?’ I asked, completely bewildered by all I was being told. It was only serving to make things more complicated, not easier.
Holmes chuckled softly.
‘Earlier I said to you – ‘I have something. When you look at it, it’s there. But when you look for it, it’s not. What is it?’
‘This refers, of course, to a person’s reflection.’
I considered this for a moment.
‘Well, yes, I can see that now,’ I said. ‘But how does this relate to the words on that scroll, and also to the matter of the mirror?’
‘The mistake made these past several hundred years, by many a Japanese priest and monk, had been to assume that Gyoja’s words related to some inner state of Nirvana, or Enlightenment, being attained – if only one could realize the true meaning of his words. In accordance with the Buddhist belief that this world we inhabit is nothing other than a shabby illusion, and so on.
‘In any case, I and at least one other person have, to date, realized that the scroll has written upon it what is nothing other than a glorified riddle. And not a particularly skillful one, at that. ‘To exist in this place / And yet simultaneously / To be in another’ – such a thing can only occur, surely, when you see yourself reflected in a mirror? And what mirror, here in this temple, other than that impressive work of Chinese art mounted in the main entrance?’
Although Holmes could hardly see me, I nodded. His reasoning had been proved correct, after all.
He quoted then: ‘And then to see through this other / And to discover / What lies beyond?’ – Well, surely that related just to finding out what was located behind the impressive-looking mirror.
‘In any case,’ continued Holmes, ‘the start of that riddle almost begs the reader to ‘calm the mind’ and to seek ‘simplicity’ – that is, to realize that it’s just a set of simple instructions to locate another scroll, and not the potential gateway to some higher spiritual plane.’
‘But what is the purpose of this, Holmes-san?’ I beseeched, again feeling utterly bewildered. ‘And does it have anything to do with these two strange deaths you’ve been summoned here to investigate?’
‘We, Yoshida-sensei,’ emphasized Holmes. ‘These two deaths that we’ve come here to investigate.’
Whether it was the flush of pride these unexpected words suddenly stirred within me, I don’t know. But at once, I thought I knew the meaning of the riddle we’d found hidden in that small cavity behind the mirror.
‘Time!’ I said a little too loudly. Quickly lowering my voice, I added: ‘I destroy villages / And can defeat / Mountains’ – this surely refers to the passing of time.’
Holmes was quiet for a few moments. I wondered if he (justly famous for his lightening intellect) was not perhaps a little jealous of my realization.
‘No,’ he said then. ‘The words written on that sc
roll have nothing to do with time.’
‘Then what do they relate to, might I enquire?’ I asked, not a little shortly.
Holmes gave a slight sigh. I could picture him lying there, eyes open, staring up into the dark. That formidable mind turning, his thoughts all the time like the tentacles of an octopus, searching…
‘For that,’ he said at length, ‘we must focus on this strange habit the deceased monk Isuke apparently had.’
It took me a few moments to understand his meaning.
‘The – walking in the rain, you mean?’ I enquired, feeling quite baffled once again.
‘Goodnight, my dear fellow,’ returned Holmes. ‘Rest well. Tomorrow will be a busy day – starting with our attending the morning service in the temple main hall…’
5
A bell chimed low and the monks prostrated themselves. They were kneeling before the large, golden statue of Buddha in the main hall. Led by the priest – who seemed a little unwell this morning – they commenced chanting. The air was thick with burning incense.
Holmes and I, kneeling close to the entrance into the hall, watched the service taking place. Although nothing had been said, we knew it was almost obligatory for anyone staying at the temple to attend at least one of the temple’s services each day.
The first monk found dead at this temple, six months or so before, had died in this very hall. Holmes had said so, the previous day. And apparently with that same, horrific expression on his face…
Exactly what had been the cause of that look? Katamari, the senior monk, had spoken nonsense the previous day. No one who expired from something as commonplace as a fever wore an expression on their face like that. I couldn’t help but shudder at the recollection of it. That was the face of someone who’d surely seen hell, the second or so before they’d died…
The service concluded, the priest said a few words and dismissed the junior monks. Then he walked over to Holmes and me, Katamari as usual by his side.
‘Well,’ sighed the ageing priest, his face far more haggard than it had been before. ‘I couldn’t prevent one of the monks from leaving yesterday – and now two more have stated their desire to go. Have you… realized… anything yet, Holmes-san?’
This last question was asked almost in quiet desperation. Holmes gave a slow nod.
‘Maybe, Jushoku – maybe,’ he returned.
Katamari looked sharply at him, while just a little of the weight on the priest’s shoulders seemed to lift slightly.
‘If I can ask… what have you…’ began the priest uncertainly.
Politely raising his hand, Holmes said, ‘My apologies, Jushoku, but I require just a little more – ’
‘Of course, of course,’ said the priest quickly, and with that he shuffled over to do something at the altar. I watched him go, pity in my heart for an old man facing such troubles.
‘Incidentally,’ said Katamari suddenly, ‘I asked some of the monks about the incense in Isuke’s room. I mean, the incense which you noticed had been burnt, and which was of such apparent interest to you.’
Katamari’s voice was cold, and spiked with faint mockery for the English detective’s bizarre question of the previous day. Clearly, the senior monk did not intend for Holmes to forget it.
‘Yes,’ continued Katamari, almost with relish. ‘It seems Isuke had recently been complaining of a bad smell in his room – as though a small rodent or something of the sort had got trapped in the walls, or under the floor. So he’d asked another monk to supply him with a few sticks of incense, which he could burn and thus use to disguise the smell.
‘That, you see,’ finished the senior monk, ‘is the simple answer to your earlier question.’
‘Yes,’ said Holmes quietly, with obvious embarrassment. ‘A bad smell. I see…’
Katamari wore an expression of hawkish triumph as he stared at Holmes. But then the priest returned.
‘Holmes-san – and of course Yoshida-sensei,’ said the Jushoku. ‘You were very good to come here so quickly. Despite these present, somewhat desperate circumstances, I should hope we can still show our guests – and one of these a foreigner, come from so far away! – a little of what the temple ordinarily, as it were, has to offer.’
‘I believe Gyoja-sama was a keen practitioner of the tea-ceremony,’ declared Holmes. ‘So much so that he had a tearoom built here…?’
‘That is correct,’ returned the priest, nodding his admiration for Holmes’s knowledge concerning such things. ‘Come, I will show you it.’
He, Katamari, Holmes and I left the main hall.
I have not given any great physical description of the temple where we were staying. But, as was the standard practice several hundred years before, it had been built at the foot of a mountain. On one side was also a steep gorge, which had at the distant bottom of it a river lined with bamboo groves. The sliding windows of wood-and-paper, sited along one side of the main hall and also present in the room in which Holmes and I were staying, opened up to reveal this view. (I mean, of course, if you actually cared to stick out your head and look down.)
The tea-room was located on the other side of the temple from that facing this gorge, along several darkened wooden corridors. But then we emerged into a light, square-shaped room where a number of those utensils which are used in the tea-ceremony, made of course from bamboo, were stored on a set of wooden shelves. In the centre of the room was a square-shaped gap in the tatami, where the kettle and its metallic stand would be sited when the ceremony actually took place.
The priest opened a sliding wooden door, revealing a ledge and beyond this a large pond teeming with carp. At the priest’s invitation, we stepped out onto this ledge. The large carp flashed their beautiful colors in the water – orange, yellow, red, black and gold. The pond was roughly circular in shape, and looked as though it became immediately deep from the edges. The outline of the mountain behind, its top shrouded in mist, formed a perfect background.
In the centre of this sizeable pond was an old stone statue of a dragon. It was at this that Holmes was staring, intently. Then he looked down at the deep water with a strange, slight smile.
‘Beautiful fish,’ he said softly. ‘There,’ he continued, pointing, ‘look at that one, the various colors on its body…’
It seemed to me that Holmes was leaning too far forward. So that in the next moment, he overbalanced and fell with a great splash into the water.
For a few moments, shocked, the priest, Katamari and I stared down into the water. But of Holmes there was no sign! Then I uttered a slight cry, and prepared to dive into that water myself – although I am not a strong swimmer…
But then Holmes’s head broke the surface, and his hands gripped the edge of the ledge. I and Katamari helped him climb up, so that he sat dripping, a rueful expression on his face.
‘Are you… all right?’ asked the priest hesitantly. It seemed to me that this question concerned less the mishap Holmes had just suffered, than it did his general mental state. Yesterday there had been that nonsense concerning the sticks of incense; and now here he was falling into a pond, as though he’d taken too much sake.
Really, had I only recently met Sherlock Holmes, I too might have suspected that this foreigner’s ‘abilities’, so to speak, had been somewhat exaggerated…
‘Yes, yes,’ repeated Holmes quietly, his embarrassment obvious. ‘I’d better return to my room, to change my clothing and such…’
‘Yes,’ said the priest, who then had a sudden coughing fit. Really, he did not look at all well.
‘I will conduct the lunch and evening services, Jushoku,’ suggested Katamari to his senior. ‘Why don’t you rest for the remainder of today?’
His concern for the older man was almost touching to behold, and contrasted uncomfortably with the foolish antics of the English detective.
‘Thank you, Katamari,’ nodded the priest, sighing. ‘Yes, I think that would perhaps be best. Yet again, I find my health failing me…’
We left the tearoom, and were about to part company (Katamari and the Jushoku heading one way, Holmes and I returning to our room) when Holmes said suddenly –
‘For how long were you in China, Katamari-san?’
‘Five years,’ returned Katamari automatically; then he started, and stared almost angrily at the foreigner.
‘You already knew this, Holmes-san – or have you somehow guessed it just now?’ asked the priest, his own expression hardly showing sympathy towards Holmes.
‘I spent some time in China myself – Chang’an, specifically,’ returned Holmes mildly. ‘I usually can recognize if someone has travelled to that country for any length of time.’
The priest’s face now registered mild surprise.
‘You say you were in Chang’an? But that is the same place where Katamari received part of his specialized Buddhist training, along the Silk Road.’
‘Maybe Holmes-san once had aspirations of being a Buddhist monk himself?’ suggested Katamari, his voice as usual faintly mocking.
‘Hardly,’ returned Holmes a little coldly; the first indication that he didn’t much care for this senior monk. But then the aging priest gave another unhealthy-sounding cough, and Katamari ushered him away.
Back in our room, Holmes changed quickly into dry clothing. (Here, I should say that although the Englishman was already near-fluent in the Japanese tongue, and so familiar with this country’s culture, traditions, history and all the rest of it, he still favored western-style dress. I, on the other hand, was wearing a kimono – ideal dress, for this time of year…)
Holmes’s face was now intent, his eyes alight.
‘As matters quickly become clearer, so does the danger get ever greater, my dear doctor,’ he informed me. ‘But we are safe for now – safe, that is, at least until tonight.’
‘But whatever happens tonight, Holmes-san?’ I asked.
‘We return to the tearoom, and hopefully solve this riddle that not only drove the monk named Isuke virtually insane – but which also resulted in his murder…’
