Sherlock Holmes, The Missing Years: Japan
Vasudev Murthy
Poisoned Pen Press
Copyright
Copyright © 2015 by Vasudev Murthy
First E-book Edition 2015
ISBN: 9781464203664 ebook
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in, or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the publisher of this book.
The historical characters and events portrayed in this book are inventions of the author or used fictitiously.
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Contents
Sherlock Holmes, The Missing Years: Japan
Copyright
Contents
Dedication
Acknowledgments
Preface
Poem
A Letter from Yokohama
The Voyage Begins
Murder on the North Star
Alexandria
Alexandria to Bombay
Meiringen—Vladivostok—Yokohama
Shigeo Oshima
Masako Nohara
Bombay
A Journey Through India
Bodh Gaya
Calcutta
Angkor Wat—Saigon—Nagasaki
Kyoto
Tokyo
The Imperial Palace
Closure
Home
Epilogue
The Ghosts of Music
More from this Author
Contact Us
Dedication
In memory of my mother
Acknowledgments
There are many who made this book possible:
My wife Vidya, for innumerable suggestions along the way and for being a focused and very fussy reviewer. We thought of this book while on a brief visit to Cambodia many years ago. She believed in the idea and believed in me. The rest was mere detail.
My son Sarang, for his inspired suggestions on Sherlock Holmes’ journey through India.
Many friends around the world who encouraged me at every turn. In particular, Herma Caelen and Frauke Hertel from Brussels.
Barbara Peters, the astonishingly professional Editor-in-Chief of Poisoned Pen Press, who held my hand from distant Arizona and made me understand the importance of striving for perfection (though I am still quite some distance away from it!).
Karthika V K and Ajitha G S of Harper Collins India for helping me balance the content. Karthika’s objectivity helped me in so many ways. I realized that writing is easy, while editing is the more difficult skill. Thank you.
Sudarshana Ghosh for constantly encouraging me and for being my unpaid publicist!
Japan, a country I admire, that provided so many motifs that helped develop the theme.
And finally, to Arthur Conan Doyle, for creating a character who will live through the ages and provide endless inspiration to so many.
Vasudev Murthy
Bangalore, India
Preface
I first encountered the Sherlock Holmes Society of London in 2001 when I was invited by a friend to accompany the Society on a Baltic cruise to celebrate its fiftieth anniversary. My wife and I were given plenty of notice for the trip, but a few weeks beforehand we learned that a number of the visits en route would need to be conducted in the contemporary costume of 1895—when Holmes was thriving. Several hasty visits to costumiers ensued.
As we visited various countries on that trip, we were struck by the international popularity of Sherlock Holmes. In Copenhagen we were taken on a trip around the canals by the local Sherlock Holmes Society to do ‘canonical boat spotting.’ Owners of boats on the canals had been encouraged to rename their vessels after characters and places in the Sherlock Holmes stories and we had to identify them. In Stockholm, the local society presented us with the skeleton keys to the city. And in St. Petersburg, we met a Russian fan who had travelled for two days from Siberia to join our celebrations.
Sherlock Holmes is clearly a character who has captured the imagination of people all around the world. And of course the stories have been replayed endlessly on stage, TV, and film, almost from the time that the stories first appeared in print. Beyond this, however, the characters of Holmes and Watson have been used in countless pastiches—new stories and films that have portrayed them in new situations.
Some commentators have wondered about the attitude of the Sherlock Holmes Society of London to these newcomers, expecting us to be guardians of the purity of the original stories and characters, resisting the possibility of any transgression. The reality is the reverse: We welcome these new explorations of Holmes—some of which continue to be set in Victorian London, but others that bring him into the current day.
Jazz fans will be familiar with this attitude. Great musicians take classic ballads and perform them with a new twist, giving a fresh interpretation of how the tune might sound. So it is with the characters of Holmes and Watson when authors write them into new milieux and situations.
Of course, Sherlock Holmes was not concerned only with crime, although his description of himself as a ‘consulting detective’ would perhaps lead to that conclusion. ‘Private investigator’ is a more accurate description of his profession, and many of the stories involve no crime at all; they are about resolving mysterious circumstances. No surprise then that many of the stories are titled ‘The Adventure of…’. There is plenty of scope for authors to place Holmes in situations that are far removed from the classical detective genre.
Vasudev Murthy and I met in the course of our work some years ago but it was only on a train ride out of London that we discussed our shared interest in Sherlock Holmes. Vasu confided in me that he was hoping to write a novel about Holmes’ adventures during what fans call the ‘great hiatus.’ This is the period from May 1891 to April 1894, between the supposed death of Holmes at the hands of Professor Moriarty at the Reichenbach Falls and his reappearance in ‘The Adventure of the Empty House.’ It is not at all clear what Holmes was up to at that time; he was less than open with Watson, or it may well be that Watson himself was being discreet or indeed deliberately not revealing all the details that he knew. Holmes does admit, though, to having travelled to Tibet, Mecca, and Khartoum; who knows where else he may have been during that period.
Well, India is a distinct possibility. In 2012, the Sherlock Holmes Society of London began planning a trip to India for early 2014. Although none of the adventures are set in India, Dr. Watson would almost certainly have passed through during the time of his military service in Afghanistan, and there are other references to events and characters associated with India, notably in ‘The Sign of Four.’ Moreover, there is a sense of India being part of that essential pulse of the Victorian times: a presence affecting almost every family in some way.
But I remembered that Vasu conjectured that Holmes would have spent some of his absence in Japan. This would have been at a particularly turbulent time in the country’s history. Until the mid-nineteenth century, Japan was all but closed to foreign influences. Changes introduced during the Meiji Restoration accelerated the opening of the country to the world and entailed a rapid industrialization that bridged feudalism to the modern age in just a few years. Even at t
he end of the century, Japan would have been an exotic destination for most Victorians. It would certainly have appealed to Sherlock Holmes.
So we now have a new adventure set in new locations. In the Sherlock Holmes stories, Dr. Watson is the primary narrator; there are a few, however, in which Holmes himself tells the story. In Vasu’s story, there are a number of voices—admittedly reported by Dr. Watson—but each contributing to the tale in a unique way.
One of the joys of the Sherlock Holmes stories is the incidental detail—of weather (notably fogs, which were exacerbated by the coal-burning homes and factories in London in those days, often creating a thick smog), of travel by road, sea, and train, and the manners and entertainments that Holmes and Watson enjoy. It is giving nothing away about this book to say that it involves travel halfway around the world to Japan. Of course this was a much more challenging endeavour at the close of the nineteenth century than it is today. Trips that today take a day or two would then have taken several weeks and had a far greater sense of the exotic than the commoditized experience air travel provides now.
This story has great richness of voice and will take you on a fascinating journey. It is both an adventure and a colourful experience.
Enjoy it!
London, December 2012
CALVERT MARKHAM
Treasurer of the Sherlock Holmes Society of London
The Rt. Hon. Walter Campbell Esq.
Secretary
The Publishers’ Guild
Wimpole Street
Cavendish Square
London
June 25, 1909
Dear Sir,
I may be excused for presuming that my name is already known to you, given the not-inconsiderable publicity that my chronicles of the adventures of my distinguished friend Sherlock Holmes have attracted over the past several years through the good offices of members of your own Guild. I humbly accept the fact that my own modest fame, if any, is a direct consequence of a fortuitous association with a very eminent man, who will always be remembered as someone of exceptional intellect.
I write this formal letter of complaint with considerable reluctance. However, given the gravity of the matter, I have decided, after consulting my solicitors, that candid communication is best. You—and indeed the public, for I have chosen to make this letter public—have a right to understand my anguish.
At the outset, I would like to express my admiration and regard for the high degree of professionalism that members of your Guild have exhibited during the years that I have known them. At no stage or time has an editor found it necessary to advance more than a few constructive suggestions on my writing; these have mostly pertained to the need to expand on a particular point to assist the reader in understanding a possibly arcane reference. I have always respected the judgment of the editor, and our association has been noted for its harmony. Perhaps I am fortunate that my writing has always met the rather stringent and exacting standards you have set; nothing has been altered between the time I wrote something and the time it reached the public.
However, without wishing to sound pompous and needlessly sensitive, I am compelled, Sir, to formally register my unease, irritation and, frankly, outrage, about a development in your professional community that promises to have serious detrimental repercussions for all involved.
I refer here to the introduction of a new kind of bold and overly assertive editor, most often a young, educated girl, usually pretty and invariably well-read (perhaps excessively so, at a time when breadth is valued more than depth), with an entirely new lexicon. My publisher, Messrs Poisoned Pen Press, in distant Arizona, a member of your Guild, has, most regrettably, succumbed to this trend and foisted on me one such young lady who insists on providing an endless stream of outrageous, unsolicited, unwanted, unwarranted, and presumptuous suggestions, by Royal Mail, telegram, telephone, and in person.
I am a chronicler, Sir, and am unused to young women offering unnecessary suggestions on how I should be writing for the so-called ‘modern audience.’ She suggests, repeatedly, that I look into aspects of pace, weaknesses in the plot, apparent contradictions, and so on. She would have me believe, Sir, that I am a novice and that I lack the ability to hold the audience’s attention. Indeed her whole manner could be easily construed as pitying and tolerant, as perhaps a missionary might view a heathen in some corner of our overseas territories.
My contention, Sir, is that I do not write for salacious readers and do not believe that I am obliged to ‘hold’ my audience’s attention. I do not invent or make special efforts to appeal to the morbid and celebrate the sensational. I report facts and do not pander to the ‘modern readership,’ which, I am told by this young lady is restless, impatient, and suspicious, constantly seeking gratification on every page, in the absence of which a work of rigour is dismissed cursorily. I am not obliged, Sir, to create a racy piece of fiction to solicit cries of delight from an immature readership that relishes murder and mayhem. I report true facts faithfully. To expect that every second of Sherlock Holmes’ life was filled with tension, shocking events, evil men and women, and sinister plots is a grave affront to the sensibilities of anyone associated even remotely with him.
I could certainly point out a few specifics in a recent communication from this young lady.
The pace slackened at—
I don’t think this is necessary—
Holmes is unlikely to say—
The temerity of this pretty, energetic, bright-eyed junior editor to suppose that she should hold my pen and write on my behalf—this is a matter of the deepest concern. Why then am I necessary, Sir? How dare she say to me, with a touch of patronizing sarcasm, that ‘Holmes is unlikely to have said…’? She never met him and never will. I spent many years with him and my faithful notes have stood the test of time and scrutiny. Why should there be an expectation that Holmes speak in precisely one way and not another? He was a linguist, a violinist, a scientist, a great scholar, and certainly someone with a gift for disguise. Nothing can be asserted with absolute certainty about him, except that he was a man of the utmost integrity.
My mind is now filled with grave doubts, Sir, as to whether my work will ever reach the public eye without meddling by this overly educated editor. We see now the deleterious effect of Universal Suffrage in the most sacred space—the editorial desk of respected publishers. I have demanded that this letter of protest be included in the final manuscript since I no longer believe that my work will emerge unscathed.
The modern woman is devious, my dear Sir, and counts on the need of a gentleman to always be a gentleman under all circumstances. However, it is the possible besmirching of the reputation of my distinguished friend Sherlock Holmes that most exercises my mind. Needless to say, I am in discussion with my solicitors Llewellyn, Harwood and Fox, 15, Lincoln’s Inn Fields, London, W.C. for appropriate legal recourse and recovery of damages, should the machinations of this attractive young woman succeed.
I trust I have succeeded in drawing your attention to this matter and I am confident that your respected organization will institute suitable enquiries and provide correction to Messrs Poisoned Pen Press and similar others on their misguided attempts to suffocate writers with unacceptable attentions.
I remain, Sir,
Yours truly,
John H. Watson, M.D.
221B Baker Street
London, W.C.
Poem
Every morning
We gaze into our mirrors
Which are unblemished;
Oh, that we could attain
Such a purity of soul.
A Waka poem by Empress Shoken
9 May 1849–9 April 1914
A Letter from Yokohama
My friend, you may have lived in Osaka and I in
Nagoya for the past thirty years. And yet the bonds of
our silent friendship are stronger tha
n the steel of
a Samurai’s sword.
When I wrote The Final Problem, advising the public on the circumstances leading to the death of Sherlock Holmes and his arch-enemy Professor Moriarty at Reichenbach Falls near the village of Meiringen in Switzerland, I had not bargained for the reaction. To say that the man on the street felt no embarrassment in joining a collective cry of anguish would be an understatement; his rooms at 221B Baker Street became a veritable shrine for the devout. The costermonger, the clerk in the shipping office, the constable, Holmes’ friends in the criminal class—all stood shoulder to shoulder outside in silence, mourning his passing. My eyes misted when I saw how much love my strange and solitary friend had commanded from the citizenry of the city; of course, he himself would have dismissed such speculation contemptuously, for, in his rational mind, love of any kind had no place except as a lens into the behaviour of the human mind, a tool he frequently used in his investigations.
Thereafter, a number of unscrupulous individuals attempted to profit from such sentiments by reporting the alleged spotting of Holmes in many places—he was in Bombay trading in Indian antiquities, said one dispatch. A confirmed sighting in Durban, swore an Army colonel. In Santiago as a respected violinist, calmly asserted a returning ship’s captain. An innkeeper in Vaasa, Finland, said the excited wife of the second secretary of our Embassy in that country.
I, however, reconciled to his death and went back quietly to my country home with my wife. I swore to keep his memory alive and began the onerous task of collecting and organizing his papers, personal effects, and correspondence; I was keenly aware of how history would view and idolize the memory of this great man and was not unaware that my association with him would be remarked upon favourably. Holmes’ brother Mycroft most generously handed over whatever he had of his brother’s effects, including his beloved Stradivarius violin, saying, ‘The bonds of blood do not always take precedence over the bonds of loyal friendship, Watson.’ I was deeply touched.
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