Chapter VII
Sigerson's Solutions
So it was that we three Europeans found ourselves in comparative comfort for the first time in several days, albeit with guards stationed in the hall outside Sigerson's door. Truth to tell, we were all exhausted. For the life of me, I couldn't imagine how Sigerson could be so confident that he'd solved the riddle, when I certainly saw nothing that pointed in any direction other than toward ourselves.
During the hours that preceded our retiring for the night, Horace and I engaged Sigerson in an intellectual debate, the point of which was Horace trying to knock Sigerson off his high horse. However, Sigerson maintained his irritatingly haughty attitude, and there was nothing for Horace and I to do but hope that tomorrow would be a better day.
Yet, part of me believes (in retrospect, mind you) that Sigerson was terribly lonely that night. We were invited to his room to share time with him, but his attitude rubbed us the wrong way and distanced us. I wonder, in light of later events, how that night would have gone if Horace and I had been more agreeable and open to the man. Perhaps it was we—faced with the unbelievable—who were rude and insensitive, and not he, who was merely justifiably proud of his abilities. A man looking back on his life often regrets decisions, and wishes he could reverse some—this is one of those times for me.
* * *
Regardless, the following describes our discussion that night:
When we were settled down, Sigerson on his rough bed, Horace on what passed for a chair, and myself on the dirt floor, Sigerson asked, "Well, what do you think? Did I run these rascals ragged? Do you have any ideas?"
Horace said, "Frankly, Sigerson, I have to admit I'm impressed with the energy expended in your efforts; however, I'm at a loss to understand what you could have possibly learned. A lot of chasing after wild gooses if you ask me."
Sigerson laughed, which, of course, may as well have been calculated to set off poor Horace. Whatever else Sigerson does or doesn't have, or can or cannot do, I can say with assurance that his social graces leave much to be desired. I never knew a man who could so easily upset all those around him with a mere flick of the wrist or toss of the head or a slightly-off tone of voice.
But before Horace could even open his mouth to object, I jumped in, stating, "Well, it's all still a mystery to me. What could those horrid vulture feeders have been able to tell you, or for that matter, how could the dust in the corners of the rooms have made any difference? I only pray that we can get out of this with our skins."
"My feeling," continued Horace, "is that there is more here than meets the eye. I don't believe that you are what you say you are, Sigerson. So out with it. Who are you? What are you doing here? What is all this hocus-pocus you've been trying to pass off as deduction and detection—?"
" My good man! Holly, I dare say, please. You are getting yourself overwrought! You yourself speak of 'more than meeting the eye.' My avocation is simply spying those details—sometimes remarkable, sometimes not—that nine hundred ninety-nine people out of a thousand don't see. The details are there, sometimes blown into corners by draughts, sometimes as isolated bits of information taken for granted by one person but not even known to another. I look for all these disparate pieces and assemble them. Sometimes the process is simple, like pieces of a puzzle neatly coming together, and voilà, there is the answer! Other times, the solution is more difficult to ascertain."
"Skullduggery is more like it!"
"Horace, honestly, I, too, am beginning to lose my patience with your fears. The man has just successfully bought us some time. We need now to plan our escape."
"Perhaps, as a fallback, that is a good idea," Sigerson offered. "However, if we can accept the word of the high lamas here, we will be able to walk away tomorrow, if such is our desire."
"How can you possibly say that?"
"Obviously, I'll simply tell them who killed Paljori and lead them to their sacred book. When they have everything they want, they will release us."
"Do you mean to say you actually know these things?"
"Of course."
The absurdity of it struck me as funny. Therefore, I knew what Horace's feelings must be. I had to hurry to think of an idea to circumvent his wrath.
"Well, then, let us try to guess the answer," I ventured. "We were with you today, saw nearly everything you saw, met the people you met. I know I have a theory, as must Horace. Let's compare our ideas."
"Capital!"
"I believe there are Chinese spies among us."
"Now, why on earth would you think that?"
"Well, obviously since the Dalai Lama is involved, it must be some big political brouhaha, which indicates international intrigue. At present, there are only three nations interested in Tibet from a political point of view—Britain, Russia, and China. Holly and I are the only representatives of Her Majesty here, and we are certainly not spies, let alone killers. That leaves the Russians and the Chinese. But since there has been no evidence of non-Orientals lurking about, then the culprit or culprits must be Chinese disguised as Tibetans."
"Most impressive, Vincey. Yes, yes, a most impressive feat of mental derring-do. Unfortunately, you could not be further from the truth."
"And why do you say that?"
"Well, for one thing, the Russians could easily have utilized Mongolians, or border Tibetans for that matter, but it is a more fundamental problem than that. What about you, Holly?"
"Frankly, it is as much a mystery to me today as it was when we first heard about it. I don't see where it all leads. I only hope we get out of this fix somehow. In fact, I hope that you are right in whatever it is you reveal tomorrow, Sigerson."
"So be it!"
We retired late that night and slept restlessly. Indeed, I think that sleep was denied Horace entirely, for I would awaken intermittently through the night and hear my foster father muttering to himself.
But at last, the guards roused us the next morning and off we went to confront Wan-Po in the temple. There was some arguing between him and Sigerson, then the Norwegian suggested we all return to Paljori's apartment, which we did in short order.
"Wan-Po, please give me a description of the book."
"It is two feet long, perhaps four inches thick, and eight wide. The cover boards are the rarest mahogany inlaid with gold, emeralds, rubies, diamonds. This ornamentation was created centuries ago in the form of a dragon eating its own tail by a master artisan of such high caliber the world has never seen another like him. The pages are a kind of parchment, brittle now and so brown the text is barely discernible."
"Admirable. Admirable, indeed."
Just at this point, without so much as a whisper to warn us of his approach, and with a grand flourish consisting of piercing tones from six-foot-long ceremonial horns, conch shells, various reed instruments, and drums, the young Dalai Lama entered the room. It was a most unexpected and awesome entrance.
"Excuse me, gentlemen, but I was curious," said the boy.
Sigerson's eyes glowed with fire. "Ah, you are just in time, Your Grace!" he said triumphantly.
And then with a dramatic turn, Sigerson thrust aside Paljori's rough cot and pointed at a section of the wall.
"There is where you will find your precious document."
Astonished, I peered at what he was pointing to, but could only see the blank wall. The others in the room appeared equally confused.
"What manner of nonsense is this?" Wan-Po erupted. "Do you take me for a fool?"
"Humour me, my good man, and touch that section of wall and then the surrounding sections."
Reluctantly, the Dalai Lama's head police officer did so.
"This section is rougher than the surrounding areas. So what?"
"I do believe that if you were to set men to gouge out a hole at that spot, you'll find your document."
Not to drag out this narrative longer than necessary, they did just that, and, as God is my witness, in a cache in the wall, wrapped in the finest silks,
was the book in question, housed in a box and between covers every bit as fine as we'd been led to believe.
Horace groaned and whispered to me, "Don't you see it? Sigerson was the guilty party all the time. How else would he have known where to look? He is the murderer. And how clever he is to have hidden it where no one else in the world would have dreamt to look for it."
I looked at Horace with horror. I couldn't believe he actually believed what he said. To my mind, however idiosyncratic Sigerson might sometimes seem, he wouldn't have allowed us to be falsely accused. No. It was unthinkable!
Sigerson, for his part, though he must have heard Horace's frustrated remark, chose to ignore it, and instead confronted Wan-Po. The police monk was tenderly looking over the volume when Sigerson interjected. "You have your volume now, and I can safely presume that it is in fact the tome for which you were so desperate, not the elaborate cover and box. Gold and jewels are replenishable; whatever this manuscript may be, is not."
Wan-Po ignored Sigerson's statement and looked up with suspicion in his eyes. Then he made, in his own language, a remark nearly identical to Horace's, denouncing Sigerson as the ultimate culprit.
"On the contrary. 'Twas not I," Sigerson calmly responded. "But I know who is, or was, rather."
We waited. All eyes inevitably drifted to the Dalai Lama's expectant expression.
Sigerson drew out the moment, slowly meeting the gaze of each and every person present. For a moment, I felt I was immersed in a stage production. Finally, he spoke again.
"Paljori was deathly afraid of Vincey there, and Holly and myself—for no other reason than we represented the different. But worse than his fear of us as individuals, he feared what we represented—our home-lands, the Western world, our governments. He could not allow us to leave your country to report, so that others would follow us. There was no greater threat in the world to the man, and he plotted how to be rid of us. He needed for us to enrage those Tibetans who had the power to triple and quadruple the civil effort to prevent foreigners from penetrating your borders. He had to guarantee that no non-Tibetan would ever again enter Tibet, let alone travel all the way to Lhasa."
I realized my jaw was hanging open. Horace, I saw, was pale.
"Paljori, gentlemen, hid the book himself where he felt no one would ever look, planted evidence that pointed clearly and irrevocably to my friends and myself, then simply killed himself. His faith in his convictions was so great."
Wan-Po was too taken aback to speak.
"Proof? You will want proof for such an apparently outlandish conclusion, of course," Sigerson continued. "I can quickly provide it. Will the undertaker and the medical monk, who are waiting outside, please step in?"
Whereupon the two indicated persons stepped in from outside, clearly uncomfortable to be in the presence of their revered spiritual leader on one hand, and to be the centers of attention on the other.
"You'll have to excuse this little surprise," Sigerson went on. "Your Grace, you'll remember, you gave me the power to question these men. I took the liberty, as well, to ask them to be available here at this time. Now, I'll have them clear up this last sticky point."
Whereupon, in response to queries from Sigerson, the medical monk described the nature of the wound, as did the mortician, both indicating that the slash was just deep enough to have been inflicted by the wielder of the sword in question, but not so deep as one would expect if a second person had wielded the weapon.
Finally, Wan-Po was convinced, as was Horace. The Dalai Lama was clearly impressed.
As a reward, Sigerson asked only that we three foreigners be given the opportunity to learn the contents of the document that was so important to our hosts and so nearly disastrous for us.
The boy granted Sigerson's request. Unexpectedly, the volume proved to be written in Aramaic. Horace, being familiar with the written form of the language, volunteered to read it aloud. Though there was Tibetan annotation, he read directly from the original. I wish to God he hadn't read it at all. But it is not mine to pick or choose as God might. Here is a copy of the old Tibetan book. Make of it as you will.
THE JOURNAL OF ISSA
1. Is it God or is it I who guides this brush? God fills me as milk warm from the goat fills a cup to overflowing.
2. Long ago I ceased to be merely the man who is the son of my parents. I was young when God showed Himself to me:
3. That was the time I ceased to be the son of my parents. I became then an instrument of the Lord. I, Issa, son of Joseph, the carpenter of Nazareth, ceased to be.
4. My whole will from that time forward focused on the fact of God's gracing me with the indisputable awareness of His presence.
5. Why me? What did I ever do to deserve the acquaintance of God? My time and my life have been for these last eighteen years fully a matter of trying to understand what was and is happening to me.
6. I am filled with God. But tell me, if you empty a fig of its meat and fill its skin with mandarin orange pulp, are you left with an orange?
7. Then I am no more God than the fig is an orange. But as that fig, transformed, knows more of oranges than a natural fig, so I know more of God than a natural man.
8. They will say, I think, that I am the son of God. Others will say I am a fraud!
9. I know that the Lord has chosen me for some other than ordinary purpose. I can see glimpses of it, but the details elude me.
10. These things are fact, not to be ignored by me or anyone.
11. 1 know clearly how the prophets must have felt; what they must have known. As God spoke to Abraham and Moses and Isaiah, so He speaks to me.
12. I truly know that I am to do my Lord's bidding; I am to be the instrument of His will.
13. My Lord wants me to wander through the East and absorb everything I see and hear.
14. So be it. Such is what we have done for nearly eighteen years. Here I am with my brother Didymus Judas Thomas in the land of the Bon, [Editor's note: The ancient name for Tibet] the mightiest mountain country that my Father has created.
15. We have traveled far, about as far from home as is imaginable.
16. I have learned much: the tenets of Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism, yoga. These are all fonts from which I have drunk mightily.
17. What is it now that I am supposed to do? Is it time to return? Home has beckoned for months now.
18. Is there anything else to learn in this high land of false magic and superstition? Will I know what to do when the time comes?
19. Now, however, I write this account as You have asked, or, rather, ordered, for my Father does not ask.
20. I am here, Lord; but I don't know why. I have learned much, but I don't know why. We have traveled far, and I don't know why.
21. Everything is so different than that which I was taught as a child in Nazareth.
22. Is it that I am loath to admit to myself what your purpose is for me?
23. In our wanderings, I have noted a common theme. A tenet that explains so much—that answers so many of your children's unanswered questions.
24. Whether in China or India or here in the loftiest mountains, so long as I am in the East, I hear of death and rebirth, and of the soul using the body much as I would ride in a vehicle:
25. How after death, the soul must be born again. Though in a new vehicle, or vessel, according to the merit that the soul exhibited in its previous existences.
26.I t is a meritorious approach to existence certainly. Much as a school boy moves from one level of learning to another higher level, so, too, a death marks the potential for a move, for the coming to a crossroads;
27. But as some children need to repeat an entire season of lessons due to slothfulness or poor behavior or inattentiveness, so, too, a soul must sometimes repeat a wasted life in order to attain the merit to move on.
28. Attainment of merit is simple, surely. To do onto others as you would have them do onto you.
29. If a man or a woman follows this tenet for a li
fetime, he or she will achieve merit and be closer to God for having done so: In this life and in the next.
30. To be One with the Father, that is the purpose of existence: base man must rise above his baseness to sit at the right hand of the Father.
31. Yet it is slow. God's time is not man's time, nor woman's. A human lifetime is but the single beat of a fly's wing in God's measure.
32. The miracle is that God notices, and more than this, that God cares.
33. But God does care. If God was not Love Incarnate, perhaps all of human existence could have begun and ended without the Father even knowing.
34. But God does know and God does love.
35. Patience is the foundation.
36. An hour, a day, a month, a year, seven years, a single lifetime is not enough.
37. I have had arguments, or, rather, discussions with my brother Thomas.
38. It is self-apparent, I will say to him, that the punishment for the curser is that the soul will forget its previous life and will be cast down into a body that will spend its time continually troubled in its heart;
39. That the punishment for the arrogant and over-bearing man is that the soul will forget from whence it came and will be cast down into a lame and deformed body so that all despise it persistently.
40. Then Thomas will ask, "And the man who hath committed no sin, but done good persistently, but hath not found the mysteries, what will happen to him?"
Sherlock Holmes in the Great Detective on the Roof of the World Page 5