by Ted Riccardi
“How did you know? Who are you? You are not a naturalist nor are you a Scandinavian—”
“Who I am is of no immediate relevance to you—except that I intend to turn you over to the Chinese authorities in Lhasa once the Manning affair has come to a close. Purna Lal, keep close watch on him. I must leave now and I do not know when I shall return. Should I not return by the morning I wish you to take this man to the office of the Chinese amban with this note.”
Holmes hastily scribbled a message describing Yamamoto’s true identity, and turning to the princess Pema, he said: “We have no time to lose. Take me to Manning.”
“Follow me,” said Pema. “I shall take you to him, but we shall have to bribe the guards. Let us hope that he is still alive.”
They went out again into the cold air of the night, making their way down the dark lane whence they had come, past the Jor-khang, and into a wider street that led them to the outskirts of the city. They soon reached the place where Holmes had been stopped by the sentry and where he had witnessed the great battle between the dogs and the vultures. Just beyond was what Dr. Mirbeau had called the Garden of Punishment. Here in the first light of the morning, Holmes came upon the place where Tibetans deal with their criminals. The princess handed the chief guard a few Indian rupees and they passed through the gate.
“I must say, Watson, that even though I have experienced many horrors, I found the place singularly abhorrent. The punishments were of the most brutal and primitive kind, as bad as Mirbeau had described, reminiscent of the worst of mediaeval Europe. Most of the prisoners had been maimed in one way or another and were either in chains or on racks, with cages encasing their upper bodies. There were no walls to contain the victims of Tibetan justice; each was kept there by the crippling visited upon him and the promise of a few morsels of food fed once a day.”
They walked past several men who were in various stages of consciousness, groaning in what might have been sleep had their circumstances been different. The princess Pema led him to a dark figure lying under a large tree. His upper body, including his head, was encased in a cage of iron, his head covered with a black hood. Pema sobbed, and Holmes asked her to remain at a short distance. Holmes removed the hood. The man was in a bad state, emaciated to the limits of mortal dessication, and his eyes bulged from his skull. He had been badly beaten, and had been clawed by vultures in anticipation of his death. It took little to release him from the cage, for it was easily lifted over his head. He released his hands and the man slumped to the ground. He was dead.
Holmes proceeded to examine the man thoroughly. He had been dead for only a short time, for the body was still warm. He was undoubtedly European, but he was so thin and bruised that he was almost unrecognisable. He was dressed in Tibetan clothes but underneath was an English coat: one of the buttons was gone and Holmes noticed that those that remained were identical to the one that he had pulled from the vulture’s talons. Indeed, he heard the fluttering of wings in the tree above and, looking up, saw the companions of that dead vulture, ready to pounce on the hapless corpse in front of him.
“At that moment, I was sure of only two things, Watson. The man was dead—and he was not Manning.”
Holmes moved quickly, saying nothing as he led the princess Pema, now sobbing bitterly, gently away. Before it was fully light, they returned to her house. Yamamoto had fallen asleep, Purna Lal’s eyes glued upon him.
Holmes leaned back in his chair, and I took the moment to interrupt him with my own thoughts.
“Extraordinary, my dear Holmes. But the mystery has only deepened and become even more confusing. You have at this juncture one of the chief criminals in your hands, but a commonplace rogue, nothing compared to Dorjiloff. And the mystery of Sir William Manning is murkier than ever. You have been led to a dead man by the Tibetan woman, but he is not Manning. Obviously she thought he was Manning. And if she thought he was Manning, then surely others would have thought so as well, even Dorjiloff himself. You saw this immediately and without ever having laid eyes on Manning. How on earth did you deduce that the dead man was not Manning?”
“‘Simple my dear Watson. I am perforce a student of the human face. You may recall that I had begun the study of photographs of all the principals while still in Italy. Despite the emaciated appearance of the dead man, I could still make out the basic physiognomy. There was only the most superficial resemblance, the kind of resemblance that might fool a foreigner but not a trained observer, particularly one who had made a special study. The dead man was put there at some point to deceive not only me but Dorjiloff as well. But by whom? And again, where was Manning? At this point I did not know. But I was now almost certain of two things: one, that Manning was still alive and two, that Pema, who loved him, did not know this and thought sincerely that Manning was the dead man. She had taken me there fully convinced that we would find Manning. But he had been removed from the cage before his death and a second man was put in his place. The deception was meant to fool even the woman Manning loved.”
“Who then was the dead man?”
“That was the easiest part of the mystery, Watson. It was Sackville-Grimes, the criminal arsonist, who had come to an unfortunate but hardly undeserved fate. He had been brought into the imbroglio merely because he was an Englishman and a suitable substitute for Manning. He resembled Manning in a rather crude way, and I recognised him with difficulty but emphatically. I must say that knowing what I did of his evil career I did not mourn his fate.”
“I must say, Holmes, that the whole affair is bizarre. I sense a sure and powerful hand in all this, perhaps Manning himself and his as yet unknown allies.”
“Not bad, Watson. Your conjectures are well founded, and I regretted greatly then, as I do now, your absence. In a place like Lhasa one needs all the help one can get, and your assistance would have been greatly appreciated.”
“I am afraid I would have been of little help, my dear Holmes, beyond giving you a bit of morale and some physical support now and then,” said I.
“It is no small thing, Watson, to employ my methods in a place as different from London as Lhasa.”
“I should think that the transition would have been very difficult,” said I.
“True enough,” he replied, “but the question is why. Clearly, the laws of deduction and observation hold, for they are of universal application. But I had to be alert to the particulars of Tibetan existence to understand where to apply them. In addition, I realised that despite my penchant for working alone, I had often used Scotland Yard, particularly its two most able detectives, Gregson and Lestrade, as foils against the false solutions that often present themselves to the investigator. In Lhasa I had no interlocutors at all. My methods, therefore, faced their greatest test. It was my brain and my brain alone that had to find solutions in an increasingly hostile milieu. Finding Manning or learning what had happened to him proved to be my first problem. From what evidence could I begin to deduce his fate?”
“A most difficult problem, if I do say so, my dear Holmes,” said I.
“Yet, Watson, no sooner had I asked myself these questions about my absolute aloneness than I realised that Manning could only have escaped a cruel fate with the aid of others. In no other place in the world perhaps, Watson, does one so immediately feel oneself to be an intruder. Yet, I thought, surely British interests must be supported by some in Tibet. I had followed in Manning’s footsteps; I had essentially the same mission. I knew the same principals in the drama that Manning knew. Among those common to us surely there were those who might be friendly.”
It was precisely at that point in his reasoning that it occurred to Holmes that the short little man from Katmandu, the merchant Gorashar, might provide him with support and perhaps some needed information. It was now almost dawn. The princess Pema had retired. Directing Purna Lal to take Yamamoto to the residence of the Chinese amban, Holmes returned to the house of Gorashar. He found the merchant seated in a small room, going over the previous day
’s accounts with a man named Pushkar, one of his assistants. Gorashar looked up and said, “Let us have tea.”
“I need your help,” said Holmes. “I must find Manning.”
“Ten minutes for tea,” said Gorashar, avoiding Holmes’s plea by blowing a puff of smoke from his cigarette.
Gorashar’s English was passable but heavily accented. His native tongue was the Newari language, the language of most Nepalese merchants in Lhasa, a language ultimately related to the Tibetan, but markedly different from it in spirit. As he spoke to his servants in his own language, Holmes found it most pleasing to the ear, far more than the bazaar Hindustanee, which was the other lingua franca among the merchants.
They sipped their tea—not the Tibetan salt tea, but the garam chai of India—at what was for Holmes an entirely too leisurely pace. Then Gorashar stood up and said, “You come.”
Holmes followed him down a long corridor that led out to a small courtyard. On one side was a large stone sculpture of the Buddha. Gorashar led him to the wall behind it. There, unconcealed but also not particularly noticeable, was a small door. Gorashar opened it, and Holmes, bending as low as he could, followed him through it, straightening up after the entrance into what was a small but pleasant room. Seated at the far end, looking haggard and thin, was Sir William Manning. Holmes looked at Gorashar with a mixture of surprise and gratitude. Gorashar smiled and left them alone.
“Sir William,” said Holmes, “finding you has not been easy. Indeed, I had begun to think that you might be dead by now. I have here a letter from London which will explain to you who I am and the circumstances that have brought me here.”
Manning took the letter, opened it, and read it anxiously. As he read, Holmes noticed that his face relaxed somewhat and he became more at ease.
“So, Mr. Holmes,” he said, “you follow in my footsteps. I must tell you that my own mission has been an utter failure. I am fortunate to be alive, and, thank God, I am about to depart. The Regent, whom I have never met, has agreed to allow me to leave secretly with the proviso that I divulge nothing of my stay here to the outside world and that I never return to Tibet.”
“That means that you may still talk to me.”
“I have little to tell, strangely enough. So deeply disturbing has been my stay here that my mind already appears to have erased itself of the details and even some of the major events of my sojourn. One year ago, I arrived, as you may well know from your own voyage, sick, tired to the point of exhaustion, but with a sense of exhilaration at having finally reached the forbidden city of Lhasa. I was met by an official of the Potala, who took me to my lodging, and I turned over to him the letters concerning my mission. I sent a message to the Viceroy informing him of my arrival, but I was allowed no further communication with the outside world.”
Days passed, he said, and no call came. He was well cared for and carefully watched, since a guard was posted in front of the house where he lived. One day, after several protests, he was told that the Regent would see him finally. But the meeting never came. After four months, he became somewhat restless, even belligerent sometimes. On one occasion, he walked unannounced into the office of a high-ranking monk, whom he had met casually, and demanded his help in getting the meeting to come to pass. He pounded the table and shouted, but his anger only produced uneasy laughter and embarrassment on the monk’s face, and he went home, empty-handed and humiliated. He had become a noisy annoyance for the Tibetans instead of a silent one.
“Shortly after my arrival here,” he continued, “I met the princess Pema, and became totally enamoured. She was married, however, and I kept my affection for her to myself. I respected her husband deeply. He was a brave man who was charged with protecting the eastern borders of Tibet against rebel incursions, incursions that were never announced but occurred with increasing frequency. Unfortunately, he was killed during an ugly battle in Kham. Pema came to rely on me in those early days of her grief, and I did all that I could to help her. Eventually, a relationship of intimacy developed between us. Yamamoto, who, unbeknownst to either of us, had had me watched from the moment of my arrival, learned of our growing relationship, and informed Dorjiloff, who used it as a pretext to have me arrested. For two months I was a prisoner in the dungeons of the Potala and then in the Garden of Punishment, where I fully expected to die. My arms were stretched forwards in a rack and an iron cage was put over my head. Feeding myself was impossible. I was given nothing to eat or drink except when someone took pity upon me. Pema tried to see me and to get me freed, but to no avail. Knowing the purpose of my mission, Dorjiloff fully intended to have me dead so that he could precipitate a crisis with our Government. Despite the prohibition on her entering the Garden of Punishment, Pema came to me one night. I was by this time almost delirious with pain and hunger, and I only remember bidding her good-bye. I must have lost consciousness, for I remember nothing until I awoke here in this room. I know that I was probably near death when someone must have taken me from that terrible prison and brought me here. Thanks to the ministrations of Gorashar, I have recovered much of my strength. I have now received written orders to leave the country as soon as possible. This is the only official acknowledgement of my visit here. My mission has been a total failure.”
Holmes listened with the greatest interest as Manning spoke, for his story made clear that the original decision to kill him, made probably by Dorjiloff himself, had been rescinded.
He paused for a moment and then pulled the brass button taken from the vulture’s talons from his pocket.
“This must be yours,” he said.
Manning looked at it curiously for a moment, and then said, “No, it is not mine, despite the initials. I have never seen anything like it before.”
Holmes smiled inwardly, for it was then that the idea he had when he first saw the button came to final fruition. Manning was not the center of this Tibetan drama, nor was he a major actor in it. He was, if anything, a victim, as so many had been in the past, of events that were controlled by others. As Holmes began to realise what was happening in Tibet, a whole series of ironies revealed themselves, and he knew then that he had but one course of action. It was then too that he sensed the growth of trust between himself and Gorashar. He felt, for the first time, that he had an ally upon whom he could rely.
He took leave of Manning, who, he believed, was now as safe as he could be in the city of Lhasa, and returned to Gorashar’s own quarters. There he told the merchant that he needed his help once again. Holmes looked directly into Gorashar’s eyes: he was determined to enter the Potala that very night and to meet the Regent face-to-face. Gorashar looked at him quizzically, then smiled and said, “You very intelligent man. Many things knowing you are.”
A rather devilish grin broke out on his face as Holmes told him what he planned to do. Then a serious look crossed his face as he revealed to Holmes the easiest way to enter undetected. In the past, Gorashar himself had been asked by various officials to come to the Potala at night and was thoroughly familiar with the building. First, he said, the Potala is well protected but not impregnable. After midnight, the guards are generally asleep, those at the north entrance being the laziest. Dressed as a monk, Holmes should have no difficulty entering and then moving about, for there are few guards inside, and the patrols pass only once every two hours. He reviewed with Holmes the general plan of the palace and the location of the quarters of the Grand Lama and the Regent. Then he promised to supply him all that he would need in the way of disguise, including a monk’s robe that would suit his frame. It was at that moment that he took from a drawer in his desk the gold knife that served as the occasion for this story.
“Please take this and keep it with you. You may need it.”
Holmes took it with gratitude, for he had no weapon of any kind, and the knife provided him at least with a fighting chance should he be attacked.
“Show it to the Regent as soon as you enter,” he said.
Holmes spent the rest of the day
readying himself for the visit. Then, in the dead of night, he left Gorashar’s residence and walked quickly through the dark streets of Lhasa to the foot of the Potala. He felt his way around the west wall to the north side. There he saw a narrow stone staircase that led halfway up the massive building to what appeared to be an entranceway. There was no one in sight, and the night was completely still. He climbed the stairs as quickly and quietly as he could. To his delight, he found the door unlocked. It led directly to a dark corridor, dimly lit by a series of oil lamps placed at long intervals along the wall. A monk passed in prayer, but he was so engrossed that he noticed nothing. From some distance ahead Holmes then heard the drone of the monkish chant of Tibet. He judged that he was close to the Grand Lama’s quarters. So far Gorashar’s directions were exact. He had instructed Holmes very carefully with regard to the Regent’s quarters: the second door after the chanting room. The Regent usually slept alone there, with no guard.
Holmes passed the monks in their chant and arrived at the Regent’s door. He opened it. There, seated at his writing table in the flickering light of an oil lamp, observing him impassively in no great surprise, sat the Regent of Tibet, the great Tsarong.
For a moment that seemed an eternity, they stared at each other. They had reached the end game, and Holmes decided to move first.
“Well done, Moorcroft,” said Holmes in English deliberately and slowly, “your impersonation has been perfect. Little did we suspect that Britain has had a friend in high places in Tibet these many years.”
There was no immediate reaction. So complete was the Regent’s composure that for a moment Holmes thought his reasoning to be incorrect. Then, slowly, a slight smile crossed the old man’s face. Holmes could see his lips begin to form hesitantly the syllables that began to cross them, as if the language he was about to speak had not been used for decades. Holmes took the gold knife from his pocket and threw it on the floor between them.