The Bird and The Buddha

by A S Croyle

  I went to Uncle’s library, poured myself a glass of red wine, and took from a shelf one of his books on Buddhism. I flipped through the pages. Many were earmarked and most had Uncle’s scribblings in the margins. In a section about love, the author talked about the Four Immeasurables known as the Brahma Viharas. It was like a prayer:

  May all sentient beings have happiness and its causes,

  May all sentient beings be free of suffering and its causes,

  May all sentient beings never be separated from bliss without suffering,

  May all sentient beings be in equanimity, free of bias, attachment and anger.

  Below this were words allegedly imparted from the Buddha to his son. “Practice loving kindness to overcome anger,” he had said. “Loving kindness has the capacity to bring happiness to others without demanding anything in return. Practice compassion to overcome cruelty. Compassion has the capacity to remove the suffering of others without expecting anything in return. Practice sympathetic joy to overcome hatred. Sympathetic joy arises when one rejoices over the happiness of others and wishes others well-being and success. Practice non-attachment to overcome prejudice. Non-attachment is the way of looking at all things openly and equally. This is because that is. Myself and others are not separate. Do not reject one thing only to chase after another.”

  I realized that I had much to learn about love. I also realized that the hardest thing in the world was to practice bringing happiness to someone else without demanding anything in return. I certainly had difficulty behaving that way with Sherlock. I would willingly give him every happiness I could, but I did want something in return. Despite my proclamations of unalterable love, however, he seemed reluctant - no, incapable of doing that. Instead, in our most recent conversation on the subject, I almost felt accused of the gravest misdemeanour for expecting him to do so.

  I skimmed through the book again and found another section on compassion. It was underlined and it struck me like a bullet had pierced my chest.

  The definition is: wanting others to be free from suffering.

  This compassion happens when one feels sorry with someone, and one feels an urge to help.

  The near enemy is pity, which keeps other at a distance, and does not urge one to help.

  The opposite is wanting others to suffer, or cruelty.

  A result which one needs to avoid is sentimentality. Compassion thus refers to an unselfish, detached emotion which gives one a sense of urgency in wanting to help others.

  Wanting others to be free from suffering. I actually felt dizzy as I read the words. I sat down near the fireplace.

  Hadn’t Uncle professed to exactly this belief? That true compassion requires “an unselfish, detached emotion which gives one a sense of urgency in wanting to help others?” In slightly different words, he had often explained this detachment to people who saw him as cold and aloof despite his dedication to his patients and the medical profession. Didn’t he subscribe to precisely the Buddhist philosophy of relieving all suffering, extinguishing all suffering?

  I slammed the book closed.

  I called to Martha again and still getting no response, I finally went downstairs to the kitchen. I found her sitting at the long table where she rolled out dough and skinned rabbits, smiling, clearly rapt in awe of the man sitting across from her.

  I took a step backwards and steadied myself for a moment. Seated across from Martha, sipping a glass of wine, was Sherlock Holmes.

  32

  “Sherlock!”

  He rose and returned my greeting. “Poppy, I’ve been waiting for you.”

  I glanced at Martha, whose cheeks had reddened to a deep rose. Martha was a pretty little thing, about my age, with a face blooming with innocent beauty - a pert nose, pink lips, curls that cascaded down her back, thick and red such that any woman would cherish. I felt plain by comparison. I’d always felt too thin and too tall, too sharp-featured, and certainly too sharp-tongued. The angst I felt in that moment, the notion that Sherlock had spent hours entertaining her with stories, ogling her across the table, and she engaging him in her quiet way... the rising jealousy, the sinking feeling that Sherlock might prefer this beautiful but dull little wren who would simply listen instead of arguing or informing or infinitely attempting to display her intelligence, startled me and made my face flush with heat.

  Martha rose as well and said, “I just made a roast chicken, Miss. I was just finishing when Mr. Holmes arrived.”

  “Thank you, Martha. I am not hungry but I am sure Aunt Susan will be famished when she returns,” I said, as sweetly as I could conjure, though I believe it was through gritted teeth.

  “She was here and left again,” Martha said. “I’m to take some of the chicken and the other fixings to the Yard for your Uncle.”

  “Good. That’s what you should do then.”

  I turned to Sherlock. “Have you any news?”

  “I do,” he said.

  “Shall we sit in the parlour?”

  “The library.”

  I glanced again at Martha, as she pushed a gleaming, stray tendril beneath her cap. For an anxious moment, I imagined her sitting at a dressing table in a voluminous teagown, in pale green, or perhaps peach, with lace at the edges of its dolman sleeves. A ‘cinq à sept’, worn during the hours when lovers were received, called this because, it was said, ‘five to seven’ was the only time of day when a maid wouldn’t need to be there to help a lady undress and, therefore, discover her secret. I actually shook my head to judder the image from my mind. Then I turned and walked briskly up the stairs to the library with Sherlock at my heels.

  I filled my wine glass again and offered more to Sherlock. He nodded and as I poured more wine into his glass, I asked, “So tell me, what news have you?”

  “News aplenty. I’ve had my street urchins flushing out bits and pieces.”

  “Your street urchins? Oh, the orphans you employ to assist you in your investigations. I believe you fancy yourself an imitation of Fagin.”

  He laughed. “Indeed not. I’m certainly not a kidsman. Besides, I believe I should take offence, given Dickens described Fagin as grotesque,” he laughed.

  He was in unusally good spirits despite the dire straits Uncle was in and the fact that he was in the middle of investigating a serial killer. One who did not know - or understand - him might find his elevated mood odd or distasteful, but that was Sherlock, at his most ebullient when he was in the thick of working out a mystery, the more complex, the better. Banish the more parochial puzzles. Restless, always questioning, his merry, mischievous irreverance was always transient, as he clamored for something new, something less boring, even if it meant dueling with a criminal mastermind, a terrorist or a tyrant.

  “And Fagin,” he continued, “kept his troop of children captive and used them to pick pockets. I encourage no criminal activities. Nor do I beat them or leave them to be hanged.”

  “Sherlock, I was teasing.”

  His face shadowed. “I may have to resort to taking that persona, however.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “In light of a rather surprising turn of events, I may have to morph into Fagin Holmes, keeper of children I teach to steal goods to exchange for food and shelter.” He took from his breast pocket an envelope and handed it to me.

  “A telegram?”

  “From my brother Sherrinford. Read it.”

  I opened it and was shocked at the content. Sherrinford had written that he would suspend all further stipends or subsidies unless Sherlock refrained from ‘involving himself further in our brother Mycroft’s ventures and concerns.’

  I looked up at him. “Sherlock, why?”

  “It’s Mycroft’s doing. For whatever reason, he does not want me involved in the British Museum Murders or in attempting to exonerate your uncle.”

/>   “I don’t understand!”

  “Nor do I. And this is a bit of an inconvenience. I am quite certain that, in time, I will eke out a living in my newfound profession, but I am only just beginning.”

  “You do have the money from Musgrave.”

  “Indeed, and that shall have to last for a bit. They won’t intimidate me. Neither Sherrinford nor Mycroft. I am going to solve this case.”

  “I know you will.”

  He drank some wine and said, “Sit. We have much to discuss.”

  He settled in a wing chair and I sat in the other one. “Tell me.”

  “Well, I’ve had the children watching the comings and goings at the British Museum.”

  “And?”

  He leaned back and closed his eyes, momentarily lost in his thoughts, his hands scraping the invisible strings of the invisible violin that he imagined was resting on his knee. I wished that, instead of a grand piano, I had a bevy of violins from which he could choose when he visited, infrequently as that might be.

  His eyes popped open. “Young Archibald observed one gentleman of Asian descent who works there. Apparently, he keeps very odd hours and Archibald saw him meeting with a man very late at night behind the museum. There was some sort of exchange. Archibald is almost certain that the Asian man handed the other man a small statue. But it was too dark for Archibald to be certain, and, additionally, Archibald’s observations are less than reliable because he had with him an infant.”

  “An infant?”

  “Archibald is imperturbable, but of late, he is straddled with his youngest brother Billy, who is still in nappies.”

  “And how old is Archibald?”

  “Ten or eleven.”

  “And he is living on the streets with this baby?”

  Holmes shrugged as if it should come as no surprise.

  “We should do something, Sherlock. Aren’t you concerned at all about the danger in which you may be putting these children?”

  “They can be a problem, I admit. I do calculate the limits to which I am justified in putting them in harm’s way.”

  “Well, then, this baby-”

  “I shall see to its care.” Then there came a second shrug which made it clear that he was not interested in pursuing further discussion of the infant’s welfare.

  “So, this man with whom the Oriental man from the museum met could be the killer,” I breathed out.

  “Possibly. Or it could be some sort of preliminary conference to arrange for the true exchange of the poison. Where to obtain it and so on. I should think the mercy killer would prefer something a bit more private. He might not be present at the suicide.”

  “Suicide. But this man - if we are correct - he is ending a person’s life! That is not suicide. And as for mercy-”

  “Poppy,” he said quietly “I do not believe that this particular enterprise involves anything but merciful intentions.”

  I thought a moment. Could a person be so tormented that he asked to be put out of his misery? Could anyone be in so much discomfort that he wished to relinqish the last moments, so steeped in emotional crisis or physical pain that he was no longer comfortable in his own presence? My life was far from perfect. My romantic entanglement was a disaster. My best friend was gone. Now my beloved uncle was in gaol. But underneath it all, my nerve endings still fired with the staggering sense of being alive.

  “But that does not make it right, Sherlock.”

  “No, it does not. More importantly, the perpetrator must be found to exculpate Dr. Sacker.” He sighed, rose, slammed his glass down so hard on the mantel that I thought it would shatter. “Damn Mycroft!”

  I rose and put my hands on his shoulders. “I am grateful, Sherlock. Grateful for your persistence and your faith in Uncle. As I told you, my own has been a bit shaky of late.”

  He brought his hands up and clasped mine. Our eyes met in that familiar way, and I knew both of us were remembering the touches, the caresses, and the warmth of that night in the cottage. But the depth and the authenticity of his feelings were almost imperceptible. He quickly discharged them, dropped his hands to his side and released mine, turned and looked into the mirror for a moment. I could not discern what reflection he perceived. He turned around and said, “I have a plan.”

  “To catch him out?”

  He smiled, nodded, and said, “Of course!”

  We sat back down. I sipped my wine, drinking in every word as Sherlock, ever unable to resist an opportunity to display his dramatic talents, very slowly unfurled what he knew, what he needed to know and how he planned to apprehend the British Museum murderer.

  33

  “First of all,” Sherlock said, “I believe we have already established that all the victims had one thing in common. Each was dying or debilitated in some way by a mental disorder.”

  “How do you know this?”

  “You remember that Mr. Carttar ordered the exhumation of the first four bodies?”

  “Yes.”

  “I made a point of being present at the autopsies and I have read through their medical histories.”

  My status as a novice detective had its advantages. I had not yet learned how to ignore the law, but Sherlock was a putative expert in such endeavours. Even if Sherlock never achieved fame and fortune, he would definitely make an indelible impression on anyone he met, fooled or engaged in his great game. Once again, I was struck by what an interesting brain his was to inhabit. “And just how did you obtain those?”

  He grinned. “First, I talked to relatives of each of the deceased. At first blush, it appeared there might be a common denominator with Dr. Price, James Dixon’s regular physician. But he diagnosed only two of the victims, James Dixon, and the third man. I then sent two of my little friends to see Dr. Price, and, when I learned the names of the other doctors who treated the other men, I sent the boys to them. While the doctor examined one boy for feigned injuries, the other boy slipped into the anteroom and found the appropriate medical file.”

  I smiled. “Clever.” Then I forced a frown. “Clever, but dangerous. If the boys’ ruse were-”

  He waved me off. “They are the clever ones. I chose them carefully. The boy who pretended to be hurt should be an actor and the other one... well, I discovered not long ago that he reads quite well and retains every word, as if his mind could photograph them.”

  “Truly?”

  “He did not spell correctly each symptom or disease, but I availed myself of medical textbooks your brother loaned me months ago and looked up the necessary details. Now, the second victim was Jonathan Hartwig. He came to England after America’s Civil War ended. Well, he was sent here to live with relatives by his mother because no one could handle him. Mr. Hartwig was a soldier in the Union Army. He spent considerable time in a Confederate prison camp called Andersonville.”

  Instantly, I recalled the photographs of prisoners of war that Uncle had in his possession. Emaciated, broken, all with vacant stares as if their minds, their very souls had been extracted.

  “This place, this prison in the state of Georgia, was under the command of a vicious, savage man named Henry Wirz. Some fifty thousand soldiers languished under the brutal torture of this man; nearly fifteen thousand perished.”

  “Dear God.”

  “Yes, if there is one, one might wonder why he did nothing about it. At Wirz’s violent hands, Mr. Hartwig endured countless beatings, starvation, and every form of cruelty and deprivation. He was finally released when the camp was closed in April of 1865, but the effects have lingered. He had what they call in America a ‘soldier’s heart.’”

  “Uncle has explained this to me,” I said. “It is when a person’s mind simply cannot manage horrors he saw and the suffering he endured, which is beyond the range of any normal experience.”

  “Yes, yes,”
he said. “Severe traumatic events, the repeated threat of death. Now, according to a cousin with whom I conversed, Hartwig was tall of spirit before the war. Studious, a treasurer of books. They were an appendage to his well-being. He had planned to become a professor of rhetoric. Yet, he felt compelled to do his duty. He was captured and sent to Andersonville in the fall of 1863. The cousin could not recall exactly which battle or campaign he was involved at the time.

  “When he returned home, he had changed completely. He could not read or even speak coherently. He complained that he could not seem to purge the terrible memories and that he had frightening nightmares. His brother took him hunting as a diversion, and Hartwig went completely out of control at the sound of the guns firing. His family thought he might benefit from a complete change of scenery and sent him here, to England, to the family farm in Dentdale, deep in the northern Pennines.”

  “In Yorkshire.”

  “Yes, near the Tyne Valley. I know it well,” he said.

  I had never been, but my father and brother had gone on a hunting trip there, more for Papa to bird-watch than to hunt. Papa had described the lush valley of High Gup Gill and the beautiful rivers and wild alpine plants that grew nowhere else. And birds, of course. Pied flycatchers, redstarts and wood warblers, and glorious songbirds like song thrush, mistle thrush and blackbirds.

  “It’s supposed to be so beautiful there. So restful. But Mr. Hartwig still found no peace?”

  “Unfortunately, no. This affliction of his mind - it is quite persistent. It displays itself in amnesia, negative feelings about oneself, lack of interest in much of anything,” Sherlock explained. “They said that Hartwig seemed to feel alienated, that he was easily startled, had grave problems with concentration, and could become violent and aggressive. And he suffered from the recurring nightmares and sleep disturbances.” He shook his head. “What a waste of a young mind. He was but twenty when he came home.”