The Mandala of Sherlock Holmes Page 3

  At Horniman Circle a large wedding procession brought traffic to near standstill. Coolies carrying lanterns and flares lit up this colourful chaotic scene while a discordant native band, playing ketde-drums and shawms, provided a deafening but lively musical accompaniment to a group of wild dancers that preceded the groom. This splendid personage, dressed in the martial attire of a Rajput prince sat nervously astride an ancient charger. A veil of marigolds concealed his visage as he rode to his bride's home, clinging precariously to the pommel of his saddle.

  I spotted the two stationary carriages about twenty feet ahead of me. The ferret-like man affected great interest in the procession though he often darted surreptitious glances at the other carriage to check on its progress in the congested traffic. He had a thin pinched face with an equally pinched sharp nose, and sported, quite unsuitable for his starved physiognomy, a set of rather flamboyant whiskers which I think are called 'mutton chops', and which were en vogue about a decade ago. He was a white man, of sorts, though definitely not a gendeman.

  Finally, thanks to the firm supervision and energetic whisde blowing of a 'Bombay Buttercup' — the name by which traffic policemen in this city are known because of their distinctive circular yellow caps — the marriage procession turned towards Churchgate Station and traffic was permitted to proceed. A few minutes later the first carriage carrying Strickland and the Norwegian turned left towards Apollo Bunder and then into a side-street and up the driveway of the Taj Mahal Hotel. This magnificent structure, with its five arcaded and ornate balconied stories topped by a large central dome (with lesser ones at the corners), gives an appearance more of a maharajah's palace than a mere hostelry.

  Ferret-face's ticca-ghari was nowhere to be seen. I looked carefully all around but it had disappeared. I paid off my driver outside the gates and walked up the driveway.

  Despite the suspicious glare of the giant Sikh commissionaire, I entered the portals of this latter-day Arabian nights palace just in time to catch sight of Strickland having a few words with a European in full evening dress, whom I correctiy surmised to be the manager of the establishment. The manager then politely ushered Strickland and the Norwegian down a corridor away from the lounge and then returned a short moment later, alone. I quickly crossed the lounge, trying my best to be inconspicuous. A severe looking burra mem, most probably a Collector's lady, attired in a flawless white evening dress, glared at me through her lorgnette. A flicker of her eyelids, half closed in perpetual hauteur, gave me to understand that she thought my presence irregular. I smiled ingratiatingly at her, but with a disdainful sniff she went back to her reading. Nobody else paid any attention to me.

  Along the corridor were the rest rooms, and at the end, the manager's office. I tiptoed over to the door and managed to hear, somewhat indistincdy, the voice of the Norwegian. There was a large keyhole in the door. I surmised that from where I was I could not be seen from the lounge, and that if anyone did come down the corridor I could discreetly retire into one of the rest rooms. So, offering up a quick prayer to all the variegated gods of my acquaintance, I bent over and deftly applied my right ear to the keyhole. I admit that it was a caddish thing to do, but natives in my profession are not expected to be gendemen.

  'I do apologise for any inconvenience you may have had to undergo,' Strickland's voice sounded as clear as if he was speaking right beside me. 'But Colonel Creighton only received the telegram from London two days ago, and he rushed me off here as quickly as possible to receive you.'

  'I hope that information of my arrival here has been kept absolutely confidential'

  'Certainly. Only the Colonel and I are in the know.' Strickland paused slighdy. 'Well, to be scrupulously honest, someone else has also been informed, but right now that doesn't really matter.'

  'Nevertheless, I would appreciate your telling me about it.'

  'You see, about three weeks ago we received a message from one of our agents, an Egyptian chap at Port Said. He reported that a man claiming to be a Norwegian traveller, but with no gear or kit of any sort, had landed at Port Said off a bum boat, and had booked a passage to India on the P&O liner, Kohinoor. We have issued standing instructions to all our chaps at those stations to report on all Europeans, who could in any way, be travelling to India for purposes other than the usual. You see, for the past few years we have been having a deuced lot of trouble with the-agents of... let us say, an unfriendly Northern Power — stirring up trouble with discontented native rulers and that sort of thing. So before the telegram from London got to us, the Colonel sent one of our fellows here to check up on you. But it's all right. Seems I got to you before he did.'

  'Well, I wouldn't know....'

  There was a brief moment of silence and, suddenly the solid door I had been leaning against was whisked away and a very strong hand dragged me into the room by the scruff of my neck. It was a very ignominious entrance on my part, and I was truly mortified.

  'What the Devil....!' exclaimed Strickland, but then he saw my face and held his peace. The Norwegian released his forceful hold on me and turned back to close the door. He then walked over to the old baize-covered mahogany desk and, seating himself behind it, proceeded to light his pipe.

  'I have been listening to him for the lastfive minutes but did not wish to interrupt your most interesting narrative.' He turned and once again subjected me to his penetrating gaze. 'Just a little wheezy, Sir, are you not? You breathe too heavily for that kind of work.'

  'I am afraid it's all a....' Strickland tried to intervene.

  'No need for any explanations, my dear Strickland,' said the Norwegian with a dismissive wave of his hand. 'Of course, everything is perfectiy clear. This large but rather contrite native gendeman is without doubt the agent that Colonel Creighton sent to keep an eye on the sinister Norwegian. At least his appearance and abilities do credit to the Colonel's judgement. A man of intelligence, undoubtedly, and a scholar — or at least with interest in certain abstruse scholarly matters. Also a surveyor of long standing and an explorer who has spent a great deal of time tramping about the Himalayas. And, as I had occasion to inform him at an earlier meeting, someone who has been to Afghanistan. Furthermore, I am afraid he is connected with you, Strickland, in a manner not direcdy involving your Department; would it be correct of me to say, through a secret society?'

  'By Jove!' exclaimed Strickland. 'How on earth did you guess all that?'

  'I never guess,' said the Norwegian with some asperity. 'It is an appalling habit, destructive to the logical faculty.'

  'This is most wonderful,' I blurted out unwitting, somewhat confused by the shock of such unexpected revelations.

  'Commonplace,' was his reply. 'Merely a matter of training oneself to see what others overlook.' He leaned back on his chair, his long legs stretched out and his fingertips pressed together.

  'You see, my dear Strickland,' he began, in a tone reminiscent of a professor lecturing his class,'despite the deceptively sedentary appearance of the gentleman's upper body, his calves, so prominendy displayed under his native draperies, show a marked vascular and muscular development that can only be explained in terms of prolonged and strenuous walking, most probably in mountainous areas. His right foot, in those open-work sandals, has the middle toe missing. It could not have been cut off in an accident or a violent encounter as the close adjoining digits do not seem to be affected in any way; and we must bear in mind that the toes of the foot cannot be splayed like the fingers of the hand for any convenient amputation. Since the generally healthy appearance of the gendeman would point against any diseases, like leprosy, I could safely conclude that his loss must have occurred through frostbite — and the only mountains in this country which receive heavy snowfalls are the Himalayas.

  'I also noticed that he had a nervous tic in his right eye, oftentimes an occupational disorder afflicting astronomers, laboratory technicians and surveyors, who constantly favour a certain eye when peering through their telescopes, microscopes or theodolites. Take
n along with the fact of his strenuous jaunts in the Himalayas, surveying would be the most acceptable profession in this instance. Of course, surveying is an innocent occupation, not normally-associated with people pretending to be what they are not. So in this case I concluded that he had practised his skills in areas where the true nature of his work and his identity had to be concealed, that is in hostile and hitherto unexplored areas. Hence our Himalayan explorer. Voild tout'

  'And my intelligence and scholasticism?' I asked amazed.

  'That was simple,' he laughed. 'The degree of intelligence could easily be deduced by the larger than normal size of your head. It is a question of cubic capacity. So large a brain must have something in it. The scholarly drift of your interests was easily discernible from the top of the blue journal I noticed peeping coyly from your coat pocket. The colour and binding of the Asiatic Quarterly Review is a distinctive one.'

  'But Afghanistan?' I managed to squeak.

  'Is it not obvious? I will not insult the intelligence that I just lauded by describing how easily I came about it.'

  There was a distinct twinkle in his eyes as he turned to Strickland. 'And when the shirt of an English police officer reveals the distinct outiine of a peculiar native amulet, which is strangely also worn, this time more openly, around the neck of our native gentleman here, surely some kind of connection can be postulated. On the balance of probabilities the chance of both of you belonging to some kind of society, possibly a secret one, is therefore high. Moreover, in my readings on the subject, I have been informed that next to China, this country is the most infested with such organisations. Ryder, in his History of Secret Cults, is very informative on the subject.'

  'By Thunder!' exclaimed Strickland, shaking his head in wonder. 'It's a good thing we aren't living in the Middle Ages, Mr Holmes, you'd have surely been burnt at the stake.' He leaned back on his chair and sighed, 'The Saat Bhai or Seven Brothers was an old Tantric organisation that had long been extinct, but which Mr Hurree Chunder Mookerjee here, revived for the benefit of some of us in the Department. This amulet, the hawa-dilli (heart lifter), was given to me by the blind witch Huneefa, after the initiation dawat or ceremony. She makes them only for us. The old hag actually believes she's making them for a real secret society and she inserts a scrap of paper in each bearing the names of saints, gods and what not. The amulet helps us to recognise one another if we've never met before or are in disguise. Of course the whole thing is unofficial.'

  Strickland's tone gave me to understand that the so-called 'Norwegian' was not an outsider but someone definitely connected to the Department, probably in an important and influential way.

  'You see, Sir,' I explained helpfully,'it is also a kind of insurance. There is an established belief among natives that the Saat Bhai is not only extant but that it is a powerful society with many members. And most natives, if they are not too excited, always stop to think before they kill a man who says he belongs to any specific organisation. So in a tight spot — if someone is attempting to cut your throat or something — you could say, "I am Son of the Charm," which means that you may be a member of the Saat Bhai — and you get — perhaps — ah, your second wind.'

  'I used to belong to a lot of cults and things,' sighed Strickland wistfully. 'But the powers that be felt that I was letting down the side by traipsing about the country in various native guises, and I was told to drop it.3 All I've got now is the Saat Bhai, so I hope you won't peach on me.'

  'My dear fellow,' said the Norwegian, laughing in a peculiar noiseless fashion,'so long as your Society's soirees are not enlivened by human sacrifices and ritual murder, I will carry your secret to my grave.'

  'Well then, that's that,' said Strickland brightly. 'I'd better get along and send a telegram to the Colonel of your safe arrival. The manager ought to have your suite ready for you by now.'

  'Well, there is one little matter that needs to be taken care of.' The Norwegian looked at me. 'Mr Mookerjee has, through his own exertions, discovered quite a bit about my affairs, and I feel that it is pointless, maybe even unwise, not to take him fully into our confidences.'

  'Of course,' Strickland replied. 'Huree here is the soul of discretion, and you can trust him to keep a secret.' He turned to me with a superior smile. 'Well Huree, this gentleman on whom you unwisely inflicted your irrepressible curiosity is none other than the world's greatest detective, Mr Sherlock Holmes.'

  'By blushes, Strickland,' he said in a deprecatory voice.

  At that moment a blood-curdling scream burst through the corridors of the Taj Mahal Hotel.

  1. Milton, Paradise Lost.

  2. Kipling's indiscretions regarding the Indian Secret Service do not seem to have been confined to just the affair concerning 'The Pedigree of the White Stallion. Kipling readers will know that Strickland and his undercover activities are mentioned not only in Kim but in a number of short stories as well. Strickland is depicted as a proficient investigator, though certainly less cerebral than Holmes. He is a master of disguise and possesses a wide knowledge of native Indian customs and folklore, especially the more arcane and shady kind.

  3. For a fuller account of Strickland's problem, see Kipling's short story 'Miss Yougal's Sais' in Plain Tales from the Hills.

  2

  The Red Horror

  The unlikely concurrence of Strickland's amazing revelation and the spine-chilling scream somewhat ruffled my normal orderly thought processes. But Strickland was quickly on his feet. 'What the Devil!'

  Another scream rent the air.

  'But quick, man ...' Sherlock Holmes shouted. 'It came from the lounge.'

  We tumbled out of the manager's office and rushed down the corridor. As we ran, one shocking thought sprang suddenly into my mind. Sherlock Holmes had died two months ago. Every newspaper in the Empire, indeed throughout the world, had reported the tragic story of his fatal encounter with the arch-criminal Professor Moriarty at the Reichenbach Falls in Switzerland. How the deuce an' all had he sprung back to life? But before I could even begin to address this question, I came upon a scene so bizarre and terrifying that I shall probably carry its dreadful memory to my grave.

  The lounge, lit by three brilliant Venetian chandeliers, was half-full of formally dressed ladies and gentlemen, every single one of them staring with a look of utmost horror at the top of the staircase that bisected the rear of the lounge. The screamer was the old burra mem who had earlier disapproved of my presence in the hotel lounge. She was now standing in the front of the company at the bottom of the staircase, and preparing to release yet another of her piercing distress signals.

  On the upper landing — the focus of everyone's petrified gaze — was a figure of pure horror, straight out of Jehannum. It was a man — or at least had the shape of one — covered so entirely in blood that not a single detail of apparel or anatomy could be distinguished behind that ghasdy shimmering surface of red. The scarlet figure stumbled forward blindly. The red surface of its face opened to reveal a black hole from which an anguished animal howl burst out, ending in a dreadful gurgle as if it were drowning in its own life-blood. Then slowly it keeled over, and rolling down the stairs came to a stop at the bottom, right at the feet of the burra mem, spattering her pristine white gown with blood.

  The lady gave another piercing scream and fainted dead away.

  Strickland rushed over, followed by myself, and we lifted the old lady and carried her over to a chaise longue where the terrified looking manager and ladies ministered to her.

  'Please keep away from there,' shouted Strickland over the ensuing hubbub. 'I am a police officer, and there is no cause for any alarm.' He motioned to the manager who quickly came over to him. 'Send a messenger to Inspector MacLeod at the Horniman Circle Police Station,' he ordered, jotting down something on a chit which he handed over to the manager.

  The manager was plainly shaken. 'It's most terrible business, Sir, such a thing has never ...'

  'Snap out of it man!' Strickland cut him off i
mpatiently. 'Send someone to the thana at once.'

  Sherlock Holmes was kneeling beside the bloody figure, peering intentiy at the pupil of the man's eye that he had opened by pinching back the eyelid. As Strickland hurried over, Holmes shook his head grimly.

  'He's dead as Nebuchadnezzar.' Sherlock Holmes wiped his fingers on his handkerchief. 'Extraordinary amount of bleeding here ... humm ... from just about every part of his body.'

  Though a man of culture, and thus naturally averse to blood and violence, I have, due to the exigencies of my profession, seen death in many forms and circumstances. But this prostate figure — its shape and features masked entirely by this horrible covering of blood, looking not human but like a shapeless crimson monster — raised an amorphous terror in my heart. Of course, I did not reveal it.

  Mr Holmes seemed more stimulated than shocked by the situation. There was no trace there of the horror which I had felt at this distressing sight, but rather the quiet and interested composure of a holy sadhu, seated cross-legged on his buckskin mat, meditating on the mysteries of life and death.

  He wiped the dead man's face quickly with his handkerchief. I noticed no sign of any wound on the skin, but seconds later its features were once again covered with blood.

  'Most singular,' was his only comment as he tossed away the blood-soaked handkerchief. He turned to Strickland, 'Could I trouble you to remain here and make sure everybody keeps well away from the body while I take a look around upstairs?'

  'Certainly. I'll join you as soon as MacLeod and the boys get here.'