by Ted Riccardi
“Who are you?” he asked slowly. The words were perfectly formed, but Holmes heard the accent of the distant past in them, and a voice that had not used English for over half a century.
“Who I am is of little importance. If you must know, my name is Sherlock Holmes. My mission is that of which you have been informed.”
“Sherlock Holmes is dead,” said the Regent emphatically.
“One should not believe all that one hears. I am amused that the report of my death has reached as far as Lhasa, and doubly amused that someone such as you, who was reported dead many years ago, believed it. How odd that we should be seated here together in the Potala, two Englishmen who have so successfully manufactured our own deaths that we are believed by all the world to exist no longer.”
“An odd coincidence, indeed,” he said, bemusedly, “although I have been dead for almost fifty years longer than you. And how long do you propose to prolong your own death?”
“Provided that you and I come to an understanding not to reveal each other’s circumstances, I shall remain in my present state indefinitely, or at least until I have rid the world of several archcriminals, some of whom are my personal enemies, dedicated to my demise. A few of them have taken refuge here, as you probably know.”
“I am aware of the presence of these Western criminals, and have found their presence most annoying. As to you, I shall be completely silent. You may continue as Doctor Sigerson, and as such you may stay in Tibet as long as you please. I shall help you in every way. I have not been pleased about the influx of riff-raff from America and Europe into Tibet, and I have done everything to prevent their entry. In some cases, however, I have found their presence useful.”
He smiled as he uttered the last few words.
“Like Sackville-Grimes,” said Holmes.
“Like Sackville-Grimes, of course. But I would include Dorjiloff and Yamamoto. These are the mercenaries of the Russians and the Japanese, pretending to be other than they are. But Tibet in many ways has become a land of pretense, a land in which nothing is quite as it seems. To Lhasa in disguise: is that not the cry? Everyone is in disguise,” he said.
He paused for a moment, then continued: “I of course came in disguise myself but stayed so long that the disguise became reality. At a certain point in my stay, I found myself suddenly thrust by events into the middle of Tibetan politics. I did not shirk the responsibility that fell on my shoulders. When the present Grand Lama comes of age, that responsibility will end. Through these many years, I have worked to keep Tibet out of the clutches of its neighbors, and I have instructed the young lama in the politics of independence. But I do not know whether the Tibetan theocracy is ready to assert itself sufficiently to guarantee its independence in the future. This is why I have relied heavily on a friendly neutrality with the British through the years. My years of effort may in the long run prove to be in vain. The Russians, the Japanese, the Chinese, are all ready to pounce . . . but more of that later. How did you come to know my identity? Almost no one else knows, so you must have reasoned it out yourself.”
“In my profession, it is the smallest things that often make the difference,” said Holmes. He reached into his pocket and produced the button that he had found in the vulture’s talons. He handed it to the Regent.
“Ha!” he exclaimed. “‘A mistake on my part, but something that I thought necessary at the time. But I still want to hear your reasoning.”
(Holmes went to his desk, retrieved the button, and handed it over to me.)
“It is clarity itself,” he said to the Regent. “My methods are based on the minute observation of trivia, in this case a button, innocuous in itself. The button bears the initials W.M., obviously coincident with the initials of William Manning. But close examination of the small threads left in it, together with its somewhat antique appearance, led me to hypothesise that the button as well as the coat to which it had been sewn was made in the early part of the century. You will notice that the button also bears inside the inscription of the maker, Rollins and Company, a company that disappeared several decades ago. If this came from Manning’s jacket, he would of necessity have been wearing an antique piece of costumery, highly unlikely judging from what I had heard of his sober ways. When I found the coat itself on the dying form of Sackville-Grimes I knew that something was amiss: it was meant to identify Manning to those who wished to believe that Sackville-Grimes was Manning. But who could manipulate things in such ways? Who had such power? And who might have such a coat? Here one had to look at recent Tibetan history as well, the broad picture if you will, as it coincided with these minute bits of evidence, for despite the wishes of Dorjiloff and Yamamoto to the contrary, Tibetan policy had more or less followed British desires over the last few decades. What if this were not accidental but were due to the firm intentions of someone high in the Tibetan Government? Suppose that person was the Regent himself? Suppose that the Regent did not wish to see Manning die but wished him only to leave? Suppose the Regent himself had arranged to have Manning removed before death and the coat put on the body of the moribund Sackville-Grimes as an added indication of his identity?”
And here Holmes paused and said slowly, “And suppose that the Regent himself were an Englishman? An absurd thought? Yes, absurd, but were it true, who might that Englishman be? Who might fit the historical record as well as the initials on the button? The name of the early adventurer Moorcroft immediately comes to mind, but his first name is Clement, and so there is a difficulty. But Moorcroft sticks in one’s mind because his death is unexplained and uncertain, a casual mention in the diary of Le Père Huc, the well-known French monk and traveller. “He died while leaving Tibet.” That is all we know. “All of this came to me in a flash, far faster than the time it takes to relate my reasoning—”
“Enough!” he interrupted. “Well done, Holmes. I see why your reputation grew so quickly. If you must know, the coat with the buttons belonged not to me but to my father, William Moorcroft, and of course I did not die while leaving Tibet. I left the papers of Clement Moorcroft on the body of a dead friend and re-entered Tibet in disguise with a group of Newar merchants led by Dharma Ratna, the father of Gorashar. It was Dharma Ratna who retrieved the knife that you have placed before us from the dead body of Farouk, the assassin of my own father. On learning my story, he kept my secret, and returned the knife to me. Later, I gave it to his son, Gorashar, in friendship, and he has remained my confidant. I have been in Tibet ever since, and I became through the years a Tibetan. The story of my life here is of course rather unique and I may divulge it to you someday.”
The Regent then rang a bell, and two guards carried in a figure, bound and gagged, whom Holmes recognised immediately in the dim light as Dorjiloff. The Regent walked up to him, removed his gag, and slapped him across the face with all his still considerable strength.
“You have tried my patience these many years, Dorjiloff,” he said in Tibetan, “and I have suffered your cruelties and stupidities in my country as long as they served my broad purpose. They no longer do. You are to leave Tibet now and forever. I have arranged an escort that will take you to the Russian border. Do not return upon pain of death.”
Dorjiloff tried to free himself, but to no avail. He said nothing coherent, for the insult of a slap across the face had angered him beyond words. He cast a malevolent look in Holmes’s direction before he was carried out. He never encountered him again but later learned that in attempting to re-enter Tibet he was killed on the spot by border guards, thus bringing to a futile end a career dedicated to the cause of evil.
“I think, Mr. Holmes,” said the Regent, “that it would be best for us to limit our direct contacts in the future, considering the complexity of the political situation here. You may stay as long as you like, and I will provide you with every facility to continue your botanical and zoological studies, and incidentally to rid us of some of our more nefarious visitors.”
“I agree to that. We can continue to communi
cate through the one person that both of us trusts in Lhasa.”
“Gorashar,” he said.
“Yes,” said Holmes, “Gorashar.”
Holmes stopped for a moment to light his pipe.
“A most engrossing tale, Holmes.”
“Indeed, Watson, and there is little more that need be told. Sir William Manning and the Tibetan princess Pema left Tibet and are now living here in London. I see them on occasion. Yamamoto was put in the custody of the Chinese authorities, and I gather that he died recently in a prison in Shanghai. Unfortunately, the accomplice of Dorjiloff, Rastrakoff, escaped, to my chagrin, and I was to deal with him later. I myself remained in Lhasa for almost two years and was not only able to bring several other criminals to justice but also assisted in preserving the delicate relations between Tibet and our government. I then left on my long journey in the Orient, which eventually brought me homewards. It was on the final leg of my journey that I learned, to my great sadness, that the Regent had died just after the new Grand Lama came to office.”
“And what did you learn of Moorcroft’s own life, Holmes? How on earth did it happen that an Englishman became the Regent of Tibet?”
Holmes walked to his desk and pulled from a drawer what appeared to be an old manuscript.
“Here, dear Watson, is Moorcroft’s own statement of his life in Tibet up to my departure. Perhaps you will find it of interest. You will see that he was a most improbable Englishman. He gave me his account just before I left Lhasa. As an explanatory postscript you will find it most valuable. You will notice some differences in our recollection. Do not try to reconcile them, for each of us is entitled to a good story told for our own purposes.”
He smiled as he uttered the last few words, for I knew that he often thought that I should limit my accounts to the barest essentials necessary to the introduction of the principles of observation and deduction. I smiled back, but said nothing, and began to study the thin volume that had been placed in my hands.
The manuscript was an old Indian notebook, of the kind that I later learned is manufactured in Indore in the Central Provinces of India and readily available in Bombay. The leaves were smooth and of a bright yellow paper, the cover of a bright crimson cloth. Around the whole was tied a piece of white string. I untied it, opened the cover, and began to read, written in a beautiful archaic though shaky hand, the long entry that follows.
THE DIARY OF CLEMENT MOORCROFT
In this my eighty-fifth year, I, Getong Tsarong, Regent of Tibet, set down here, for those who may be interested, a short account of my life. I entrust this document to one person, my friend Hallvard Sigerson, whose property it is and who will be free to publish it after my death in any form he chooses, provided that through its publication he deems that no harm will come to Tibet or its people.
My life has been a long one, and though it did not begin in this ancient land, I have spent most of it here. I find it difficult to write in English after so many years, during which I have not spoken nor heard my own tongue for but a few moments, and so my hand shakes as I write, not only because I am old physically, but because my mind works slowly, trying as best it can to wrest words from the dim storehouse of a wandering remembrance.
I was born in 1810, the only child of William Moorcroft, a seaman of Cornwall, and Jane, his wife. My father and mother were first cousins, but did not resemble each other. I never knew my mother, for she died shortly after my birth. My father, who was only twenty-one years of age at the time of my birth and having no other children, placed me with his cousin, my mother’s older sister, who lived with her husband and family in a modest house in London. I was well cared for and came to love my aunt and uncle as my parents.
It was through my aunt that I learned the little that I know of my mother. She was said to be a tall, dark, English beauty, with olive skin and long black hair which she often wore in a long braid down her back, other times looped tightly around her head. I was said to resemble her in many ways. My aunt remembered that I was born with a full head of black hair, like my mother’s. In explanation of our appearance, my aunt told me that my great-grandfather was a man by the name of Ogachgook Bradford, an American Indian of mixed origin, who had come to England with William Bradford, one of the governors of the Plymouth Colony of the Massachusetts Bay Company. Ogachgook had taken Bradford’s name and remained in England. It was from Ogachgook that my mother’s and my dark appearance was said to derive. I know little else of Ogachgook except that he was the son of an Indian chief called King Philip by the colonists, but known among his own people as Metacomet, son of Massasoit. There was some family speculation that the name “Moorcroft” is derived in some way from “Metacomet.”
I saw little of my father for the first five years of my life for he was almost always at sea. His grief at my mother’s death seemed never to subside, and he later confided to me that it caused in him an almost constant wandering. He came to see me as often as his travels allowed him, and I looked forward to his visits with great joy, for we prowled the city together for long hours, and when I tired he would pick me up and carry me for long distances.
One day, sometime in my eighth year, my father announced that he would like me to accompany him on his next voyage. Assuring my aunt that I would be well cared for, he took me with him to his next ship, a large frigate bound for the Americas. And so, as a very young boy, I began my travels with a voyage to the New World. I remember little of this trip, except that I took ill shortly after we left port. My sickness did not abate for several days, for the sea was rough and we had to pass through a great storm.
As we approached the continent of North America, the scent of pines filled the air, and the sun broke out from behind the clouds that had covered it for so long. We docked in Boston, and went ashore the following day. We were there for three weeks before we were to sail again. We sailed south to New York, and it was here that my father decided to stay in America rather than return to England. After a few months of city life, however, his restlessness set in again, and he decided to seek his fortune elsewhere in America. We started west, journeying through Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Illinois, then through the Mexican territories, finally reaching the coast of California. Here my father tried to become a rancher and for a year he tended the cattle of a prosperous gentleman. But my father’s desire for the sea could be postponed only so long, and after almost four years in America, exhausted by the toil necessary to keep us alive, he once again took us to sea, this time across the Pacific, where we sojourned in the Sandwich Islands, Japan, and then the coast of North China. Eventually we wandered from Hong Kong to Macao and to Singapore, where he took employment on a ship bound for England.
By this time I was twelve years of age, and my father thirty-two. We were as close as two brothers and had become inseparable. My father decided, however, that I needed schooling, so he tried to leave me with my aunt again so that I could be placed with a tutor, but I refused to stay without him. And so for one year he remained with me while I improved my knowledge of English, Greek, Latin, and mathematics.
It was during this period that my father met a Persian gentleman engaged in commerce and trade in the Caspian Sea. His name was Mr. Barzami. Impressed with my father’s experience and energy, he offered him a lucrative position as his permanent representative in London. The position necessitated first, however, an extended stay in Persia at the company’s offices in Tabriz. Because of the dangers of travel, my father was reluctant to take me with him, but I refused to stay behind and would have none of it. After a week of argument, he, I think rather happily in the end, agreed that we would continue our adventures together. In a few days, Mr. Barzami arranged our travel to Tabriz. We landed in Istanbul, and from there we journeyed through the Ottoman territories of Anatolia and Armenia, finally arriving at our destination.
Mr. Barzami had arranged much for us. We were given a large bungalow with sunny, comfortable rooms. Outside was a most beautiful garden, and so for the first time in our l
ives we lacked for nothing. I was placed with a local tutor and in time I came to speak the Persian language with great fluency.
Almost one year after our arrival, Mr. Barzami, instead of posting my father to England, asked if he would accept a position in Bombay. My father reluctantly agreed, considering the many kindnesses and opportunities that Mr. Barzami had visited upon us, and in a few weeks we left our idyllic existence in Persia and headed for India, where we arrived some three weeks later. Here we were again well treated, for Mr. Barzami had his agents meet us and provide for us.
It was here in India, not long after our arrival, that my life was changed forever and embarked upon the strange course that it has now almost completed. One of my father’s first duties was to establish contact with merchants to the north, particularly in Kashmir. And so one day we boarded a crowded train to Pathankot in the Punjab and then began our long trek to Shrinagar, the capital city of Kashmir. It was along this route that we were set upon by a gang of thieves. My father was killed and I, badly wounded, was left for dead. I remember nothing except a blow to the back of the head and then darkness. We were found by a group of Kashmiri merchants returning home. My life was saved by them, and they transported my father’s body to Shrinagar, where he was buried in the English cemetery. Through the ministrations of the family of one of the merchants, I eventually recovered, but I suffered a severe amnesia for at least a month. When I had recovered sufficiently, the merchants told me what had happened. I was filled with grief for my father’s death. The merchants said that they knew that we had been attacked by the gang of Farouk Abdullah, the cruelest of the robbers of Kashmir and the one they feared the most.
I vowed revenge. I knew that I should not be able to rest until I had brought my father’s killers to justice. And so, in the hope of finding the murderous brigands, I stayed in Kashmir. I was fourteen years old, strong and growing stronger. I informed Mr. Barzami of what had transpired. Mr. Barzami tried to convince me to return to Persia, but in the face of my steadfast refusal, he relented and arranged for my father’s funds as well as a generous gift to be transferred to a bank in India so that I could draw on them to help me trace the bandits.