The Mandala of Sherlock Holmes

by Jamyang Norbu

  Before I could sort my thoughts out properly someone tapped me on the back of my shoulder, startling me.

  'Oh! It's you, Mr Strickland,' I exclaimed, much relieved.

  'Now listen to me, Hurree. I've managed to get a first class coupe for two from the government quota, so you can travel with Mr Holmes without any problems from other European passengers.'

  'Oh, there will be no problems, Sir.'

  'I don't know, Huree. I'm not easy in my mind about letting you and Mr Holmes make this journey.'

  'But why, Mr Strickland? We agreed that ...'

  'I know Mr Holmes is safer out of Bombay, but a moving train does seem like an ideal place for another attempt ...'

  'Not to worry, Sir. I will maintain a constant vigil.'

  The Frontier Mail roared into the station, only a few minutes behind its scheduled arrival time of 1.45 a.m. The sleeping figures on the platform sprang to life. The normal hubbub of the station now rose to a terrific crescendo as yelling passengers gathered up their boxes, bedding-rolls, children and relatives, and made a mad dash for the carriage doors and windows. A collective insanity seemed to overtake the vendors, coolies and beggars as they shrieked and howled to attract custom or charity.

  We collected Sherlock Holmes from the first-class waiting room. Assisted by a porter wearing the red regulation shirt and brass arm band, who carried our few items of luggage on his head, we jostled our way through the teeming crowd and finally got to our carriage. As a precaution against dacoits Indian trains do not have corridors, and each carriage is entered independentiy from the platform. A rowdy group of tough-looking British soldiers —'tommies' from the Royal Warwickshire Regiment — occupied the carriage immediately behind ours.

  'Are you armed Mr Holmes?' enquired Strickland.

  'I have a hair-trigger. I thought it as well to carry it.'

  'It would be a considerable relief to me if you would keep it near you night and day, and never relax your precautions. Huree is an old hand at this kind of thing and you can rely on him implicitly.'

  'Most certainly. Well, Au revoir then, Strickland. I cannot thank you enough for your help.'

  'Goodbye Mr Holmes,' said Strickland as the train began to move down the platform and the child beggars made last frantic efforts to elicit alms from the passengers on the train. 'Goodbye Hurree. Mind you don't get careless.'

  Shooing away the littie beggars hanging onto the carriage windows, I leaned back in my seat and fanned myself with the newspaper as the train pulled out of the station on its long journey to Peshawar, at the foot of the Khyber Pass. The train would be proceeding via Deolali, Burhanpur, Khandwa, Bhopal, Jhansi, Gwalior, Agra, Delhi, Umballa, Amritsar and Lahore, but we would have to get off at Umballa and take a pony trap to Simla.

  Mr Holmes had his head out of the window and was looking down at something outside. After a littie while he pulled his head in and, settiing back in his seat, lit his pipe. I put my luggage away neatly on the overhead rack, and popped a paan into my mouth. Chewing it slowly I cast my mind over the events of the day. All of a sudden I remembered Ferret-Face.

  'Something the matter, Hurree?' Holmes's calm voice broke into my reverie. 'You look like you've just swallowed a thrupenny bit.'

  I told him about seeing Ferret-Face at the station.

  'But I really could not be sure, Sir,' I said. 'It all happened so dashed quickly.'

  'Hmm. Still, it would be imprudent not to regard it as a fortuitous warning. Moran now probably knows of our flight from Bombay.'

  It was not a very comforting thought. To be subjected once again to murderous fauna and expanding bullets, especially within the narrow confines of a moving railway carriage, was a trifle rich for my blood. But Sherlock Holmes thankfully diverted my mind from such distressing cogitations by diverting the conversation to more comforting and scholastic directions.

  'Ethnology being your metier, Huree,' said Holmes, 'could you kindly tell me whether the representation of an open hand has any symbolic meaning in this country?'

  'An open hand? Well, it is a commonly known symbol of the goddess Kali.'

  'Pray, enlighten me as to the details.'

  'Well, Mr Holmes, Kali is certainly not your usual benign divinity. No indeed. She is the very fierce and terrifying aspect of Devi, the Supreme Goddess; probably the most virulent deity in the Hindu pantheon. She is depicted as a hideous hag smeared in blood, with bared teeth and a protruding tongue. Her four hands hold, variously, a sword, a shield, the severed hand of a giant, and a strangling noose. Her rites involve sacrificial killings — at one time, of humans. Kali is supposed to have ... aah ... developed her taste for human blood when she was called upon to kill the demon Raklavija.

  'But it is all gross superstition and savagery, Mr Holmes, quite unsuitable for the scientific mentality. I, myself, am a Brahmo Somajist,2 eschewing such barbarity and esteeming instead the noble principles of reason and humanism, as expressed in the Upanishads, which represents the true philosophic teachings of uncorrupted Hinduism.'

  Taking his pipe out of his mouth, Sherlock Holmes leaned forward.

  'Interesting,' said he, 'but does this fiend or the open hand symbol have any connection with something other than mythology — with crime, maybe?'

  'Why, yes, Sir. She was worshipped by the Thugs.'

  'Ahh ... I remember reading about them a few years ago. Some kind of professional murderers — were they not?'

  'Yes, Mr Holmes. They were members of a well-organised confederacy of assassins who travelled in gangs throughout India for more than three hundred years.'

  'Pray, continue,' said Holmes, as he leaned back on his seat, placed his fingertips together and closed his eyes.

  'The modus operandi of these dastardly murderers was to worm their way into the confidences of wayfarers and, when all was hail-fellow-well-met, strangle them from behind with a handkerchief that had knotted into one of its corners (to give it a better grip) a silver coin consecrated to Kali. All this was done according to certain ancient and rigidly prescribed forms and after the performance of special religious rites, in which the consecration of the pickaxe and the sacrifice of sugar formed a prominent part. Although their essential religious creed was worshipping Kali, there were traces of Islamic practices present in their rituals. The fraternity possessed a jargon of its own called Ramasi. They also had signs by which its members could recognise each other.'

  'When did the authorities learn of the existence of this organisation?'

  'Definite evidence of Thuggery was only secured when Lord William Bentinck was the Governor-General of India; that would be around the 1830s, at the time of the Company Bahadur — The Honourable East India Company. His Lordship appointed Captain Sleeman to do the needful regarding this outrageous defiance of British Law. Infiveyears no fewer than three thousand Thugs were caught and convicted; one of them admitting to no less than seven hundred and nineteen murders, with many others not too far behind this shocking tally. Over four hundred Thugs were eventually hanged and the rest transported, probably to the Andaman Islands.'

  'So the whole brood was wiped out?'

  'Well ... that would be the position of things ... ah ... ex officio, but it is not exactly e concensu gentium!

  'Some of them survived?'

  'Not many, but enough to maintain the organisation. When young Captain Sleeman went after them, the Thugs were operating in Central India, mostly in rural areas and the jungles. Those who stuck to the outbacks were caught, sooner or later. Only the few who changed their habits and departed to the big cities like Calcutta or Bombay survived. That is why I wanted you to leave Bombay, Mr Holmes. They are there still, murderous as ever, ready to sell their services to the likes of Colonel Moran.'

  Outside Bombay the train slowed down and stopped at a small station. Probably the tracks were not clear ahead and the points had to be changed. A harassed looking Eurasian ticket-collector entered our carriage, his sour face, under an uncomfortably large pith helmet, g
listening with perspiration. He eyed me in a very unpleasant way. 'Hey you, Babu! What are you doing here? Nikal jao Jaldi!'

  'This gentleman is travelling with me,' said Holmes quietly but firmly. 'We have taken the whole coupe. Here are our tickets.'

  Wiping his face with a none too clean handkerchief, the ticket-collector pored over the damp sheaves of passenger lists on his clipboard, and at last grudgingly punched our tickets. Just as he was leaving Sherlock Holmes spoke. 'Excuse me, would you by any chance have a piece of chalk with you?'

  The ticket-collector seemed rather surprised by Mr Holmes's request, but extracted a small stick of white chalk from the pocket of his faded blue uniform and proffered it to Holmes. Ticket-collectors and guards generally carried pieces of chalk with them to put temporary markings on the side of carriages for the purpose of identification.

  'Thank you very much,' said Holmes as the ticket-collector tucked his clip-board under his arm and left. I also got out of the carriage to search for the dining-car. It was, thankfully, not too far away, and I was able to purchase some cold Murree beer for Mr Holmes and tonic water for myself. Clutching these I hurried back and I was just in time, for as soon as I reached our carriage the train started.

  Mr Holmes was also outside the train, and he climbed in after me. As he reached for the door I noticed that his hands were covered with chalk dust. He then went into the toilet attached to our carriage. When he came out I noticed that he had washed his hands thoroughly.

  As the train picked up speed and roared through the hot Indian night, Mr Holmes and I settled down to pur journey. Drinking the cold beer and tonic water, and eating Cabuli grapes and pistachio nuts I had earlier purchased at the Bhindi Bazaar, we discoursed amicably on matters of life, art and philosophy before finally turning in for the night.

  Around three o'clock in the morning I was rudely woken from my slumbers by a tremendous commotion from the neighbouring carriage — even afire-arm being discharged. Probably the tommies had had too much to drink and were, as usual, being obstreperous and a disgrace to their uniforms. Someone also seemed to be yelling something, in Hindustani, but I could not be sure. After a while the uproar subsided and gentle Morpheus once more enfolded me into his embrace. But just before falling asleep I thought I heard Sherlock Holmes chuckling to himself in the darkness of the carriage.

  I awoke to find Mr Holmes up in his purple dressing gown, smoking his pipe and reading The Times of India, while a railway bearer in white livery was serving breakfast on the raised drop-leaf table.

  'Good morning, Huree,' said Holmes, turning a page of the newspaper. 'I trust you are well rested.'

  'Oh yes, Mr Holmes. I slept like a baby. Only the bally hullabaloo in the next carriage disturbed my slumber somewhat. Surely it woke you up too, Sir?'

  'Babuji!' said the bearer, who had, rather impertinently, been listening in on our conversation.'Last night two dacoits broke into the next carriage.'

  'How did you know that?' I asked in the vernacular.

  'Babuji, I entered this rail-ghari with chota-hazris at Jalgaon junction early this morning. There policewallahs took one dacoit from the next carriage. The ticket-babu told me that two dacoits had tried to rob a carriage full of Angrezi soldiers. Hai! Bewakoofi On learning their mistake, one fool jumped out of the window. The other was shot in the leg by a soldier sahib's bundook. I must go now to serve other hazris.'

  'It is dashed unusual of dacoits to enter a carriage full of armed soldiers,' I mused, after translating the waiter's story to Mr Holmes. 'Generally, criminals of this sort are more careful and prepared in their enterprises.'

  But Mr Holmes did not seem to share my doubts. There was a knowing twinkle in his eyes.

  'By Jove, Mr Holmes,' I exclaimed, 'I perceive you have a fair idea about the matter. I beg of you not to perpetuate my ignorance.'

  'Well,' said he, putting away his newspaper, 'it all begins with the drawing of an open hand. Remember I asked you last night what it might mean.'

  'Yes, Sir. I told you it was the symbol of Kali.'

  'I noticed such a sketch done in chalk, on the side of our carriage, just before the train left the station at Bombay.'

  'But I saw nothing.'

  'You saw, but you did not observe. The distinction is clear. For example, you must have made hundreds of train journeys, and frequently seen the wheels on the carriages.'

  'Yes, Sir.'

  'Then how many are there on each carriage?'

  'How many? Four, I suppose. I cannot be sure.'

  'Quite so! You have not observed. Yet you have seen. That is my point. Now I know that there are eight wheels on every carriage because I have both seen and observed. But getting back to the subject at hand: when I first saw the drawing I knew that it could only be either one of two things: a child's innocent scrawl, or a mark left for some definite purpose. When you informed me that the handprint was a symbol of the goddess Kali, and consequently of the Thugee cult, I knew that the game was up and our flight had been discovered.'

  'But who could have done it? Mr Strickland only made reservations for our compartment just before the train came into the station, and we have been inside the carriage ever since then.'

  'It could have been any one of those beggars clinging to our carriage windows. Probably Moran had taken the precaution of having watchers at the station, just in case I made a bolt for it.'

  'Probably Ferret-Face was one of the watchers, Sir.'

  'It is more probable that he was the organiser, and had a number of watchers covering various places at the station and reporting back to him when they spotted anything.'

  'Yes, of course. I stand corrected, Mr Holmes.'

  'Now, I could not call for police assistance merely because of the drawing, even supposing that we could find such help on a moving train. We must bear in mind that the police would have wanted to know my position in the scheme of things, which would have been rather awkward to explain. There was also the possibility that Moran could have disguised some of his men as policemen to take us unawares. So with not many options left, I rubbed out the sketch on the side of our carriage and chalked a similar one on the side of the next carriage, the one full of armed soldiers.'

  'Acha! Of course. So they were Thugs who entered the carriage last night, not dacoits. Goodness gracious! If it were not for your vigilance, Mr Holmes, there would have been handkerchiefs twisted around our throats this morning. Baapre-baap!'

  'It need not have come to that. There was always my revolver. But that would have been cutting it rather fine. Now what do we have here?' Holmes raised the cover of a dish and sniffed appreciatively. 'Ah, bacon and eggs. Could I serve you some, Hurree. If I am not mistaken, the consumption of a few rashers of bacon does not constitute any fundamental violation of observances in your particular faith.' We arrived at Delhi that night around eleven o'clock. I got up from my berth and peered out of the carriage window at the unlovely, fortress-like station built of dull red sandstone. It was hot, much hotter than Bombay — and very dusty. A lone bhisti spraying the platform from his buffalo-skin mussak, did not help to settle the dust or cool the air. The beggars were noisier here. I purchased a paan from a one-eyed vendor and chewed it till the train thankfully pulled out of the station. A little breeze wafted though the coach and I fell back to sleep.

  Next morning at fiveo'clock the train rolled into Umballa city station where Mr Holmes and I disembarked. A light drizzle had settled the dust and freshened the morning air. As we breakfasted at the small but clean station restaurant, the Frontier Mail pulled out of the station on its long journey to the railhead at Peshawar.

  There being no railway line to Simla at the time, we took the tonga service of the Mountain Car Company, which was available right at the railway station, and rattled off to Kalka, which is the first stop en route to Simla.

  1. Intermediate. One of the many classes on Indian trains in the past. Between third and second class.

  2. The Brahmo Somaj or Divine Society
was founded in 1828 by Raja Ram Mohan Roy, the great Indian reformer and doyen of the Bengal Renaissance. He took his stand on the principles of reason and the rights of the individual as expressed in the Upanishads. These he said were basic to both Hindu and Western thought and formed a basis upon which they could mutually borrow. He attacked the institution of sati and abuses of caste, advocating the raising of the status of women and the abolition of idolatry.

  8

  Under the Deodars

  The tonga is a sturdy two-wheeled cart drawn by a single or two horses in curricle style, having back-to-back seating accommodation for four to six persons, apart from the driver. Since Mr Holmes and I had taken the whole tonga exclusively for ourselves, there was more than ample room for us and our few articles of luggage. Our tongawallah, or driver, was a shrivelled old greybeard with a dirty red turban wrapped around his bony head; but he kept the brace of the Kathiawar ponies moving at a brisk pace on the Kalka road, in the freshness of the rain-swept dawn.

  For hours the tonga rattled along the hard, kankar-surfaced road, only stopping occasionally at a roadside parao, a travellers' resting place, to allow the ponies a breathing spell. We used the opportunity to stretch our legs and drink the jaggery-sweetened mahogany brown tea, which is the only kind of beverage available in these simple places.

  About thirty-five miles out from Umballa city I espied the distant mountains floating above the far northern horizon. The slight shower early that morning had cleared the air so that the peaks were pellucid and brilliant against the sunny blue sky.

  'Look Mr Holmes, the Himalayas! The abode of the gods —or so we are informed in the Skanda Puranas!

  Sherlock Holmes lifted his head. An extraordinary change came over his face and his eyes sparkled like stars. All men are affected by their first view of the Himalayas, but in Mr Holmes's case it was as if his cares and worries had, at least momentarily, been lifted from his shoulders; as if he had been away on a long voyage and had now finally come home. For some time he gazed silently at the distant peaks.