by Ron Weighell
I will never forget the sight that met our eyes. I had thought Marie Kelly’s room in Mitre Square a shambles, but this was worse. Sturleson’s remains lay half on the floor, half on that weirdly magnificent couch. In the moonlight everything glittered blackly with blood. I have seen terrible injuries in war, but nothing to equal the carnage of that place. And on every side, the gaping jaws of wolves slavered from blood-spattered canvases. A superstitious dread fell on me then, for what had been done in that room was the work of a beast, not a human being.
Holmes looked even more shocked than I. Carefully skirting the growing blood pool, he peered out of the window and shook his head.
‘I do not understand Watson. This was not—well, it is too late now; we must go and check the house and grounds.’
Pausing only to tell Dodds to lock the door to prevent anyone from entering, we established that all the other servants were accounted for and free of bloodstains, as was Mrs Sturleson when she opened her bedroom door to receive the news. Though deeply upset, she asked if she might break the news to Freya, who had spent the night in her stepmother’s room and was still asleep.
We conducted another painstaking search of every room, then donned our overcoats and made a circuit of the ground outside the house, paying particular attention to the side overlooked by Sturleson’s window. Save for Holmes’s own prints, the unbroken surface of the snow made it clear that not so much as a bird had alighted there in hours.
‘This is incredible, Holmes. No one has left the house, and none of the occupants could have committed the act. It is impossible . . .’
I said this in the firm expectation that Holmes would chide me for overlooking some obvious clue, but he did not appear to hear me. He stood with head bowed, utterly crestfallen.
‘This has been my worst hour, Watson. I fear that the faculties hymned in those sensationalised accounts of yours have not been in evidence here, and a man is dead because of it. I have allowed my mental processes to be dulled by a shadow out of the past.’
‘The Hound, Holmes?’
‘No Watson, the shadow falls from a greater distance than Dartmoor: Tibet, Watson, Tibet. I had not intended to mention it, but you deserve an explanation. Let us go back inside.
‘As I may have mentioned, I had been in contact with Mycroft throughout the period of my disappearance, and was in fact engaged in work on his behalf, the nature of which I need not go into. It was required of me that I assemble men, animals, and supplies at Darjeeling for a journey into Tibet. My application for a permit was successful, and, to my surprise, it was accompanied by an invitation to speak to the Head Lama, who was representing the Dalai Lama himself.
‘After a six hundred foot descent into the Teesta River Valley, we crossed the Teesta Bridge and covered the last sixty miles to the Tibetan border. Torrential rains, suffocating atmosphere, and leeches made the trip intolerable. Men and animals alike were running with spilled blood. Following a pony track through Yalimpong to Rangpo, I reached Sikkim. We entered a region of tropical forests, a riot of hibiscus, bougainvilleas, and orchids. A place not unlike Mrs Sturleson’s conservatory in atmosphere. Climbing steeply through blazing rhododendrons we reached the Tibetan plateau and descended into the Chumbi valley.
‘On the high plateau of central Tibet, we travelled through a region of blue skies and searching winds. The way divided at Gyantse, but I pressed on and, a hundred miles further, crossed the Tsangpo by a narrow bridge suspended on yaks’ hair cables. Finally, having braved landslides and freezing nights, for the “long arm of Everest” was already reaching for us, we entered foggy Lhasa.
‘I was taken to the Jokhang Temple for an audience with the Head Lama, Abbot of the Ten-gye-ling monastery, who was acting Regent during the Minority of the Dalai Lama. Among the carved red pillars and tapestries, he made an impressive figure in his burgundy red robes. I presented him with the traditional gift of a white Khata, or scarf, and spoke with him for some hours. As you recorded in The Sign of the Four, I had at that time some knowledge of the Southern form of Buddhism, but was very keen to learn of the Northern form.
‘When eventually I asked why I had been summoned to Lhasa, I was taken deep into the temple and brought into the presence of the young God King himself.
‘He was a small child, but with the dignity of bearing and the intensely focussed gaze of the adept. When I was introduced his face broke into a wide smile so typical of Tibetan people, and he brandished some well-worn documents. One was my monograph on footsteps, the others—and I hate to say it, Watson, for I fear it will do little for the size of your head—were copies of The Strand Magazine.
‘It seemed that he had read, and been impressed by, your accounts of my cases. I suppose there is no reason why spiritual enlightenment should bring improved perception of literature. However, he talked of a creature the sherpas called Meto Khangmi, or Demon Mountain Man; and Yeti, or Rock Animal. The Dalai Lama would not use these names. He called the creature mi-teh, or man-animal. The belief in the existence of this being is total. One of the names of the Everest area itself is Mahalanggur-Himan, or snowy mountains of the great ape.
‘Having read my monograph “Upon the Tracing of Footsteps”, his Holiness was particularly impressed by my work on the use of plaster of Paris as a receiver of impresses. His hope was that I might further his knowledge of that shy creature. There is, it seems, a legend to the effect that the Compassionate Spirit from whom Tibetans descend was once incarnated as a monkey, and it was felt that there may be some responsibility to carry the word of Buddha to these strange mountain-dwellers. So it was that I was asked to ascend the highest mountain on earth and there confront a creature around which had grown an aura of terror and superstitious dread.
‘An expedition was arranged, with experienced guides. I set up a base camp just below the glacier at over sixteen thousand feet, and began reconnaissance. At that height it is an alien and terrible world, Watson. The very rocks seemed reduced to the form of coral by the howling winds and bitter chill.
‘After many days exploring the glacier, I had my first sighting of the creature. Far away on the ice fields just below the snow line something dark was moving, and it seemed to me that it was walking upright.
‘I pressed on with the porters and two guides supplied by the Head Lama. On the snow fields just above the glacier I came upon footprints. The snow at that temperature was hard and crisp, with no crumbling at the edge, so I could identify the size of the foot as between twelve and fourteen inches long, and of a depth that suggested a weight of two hundred pounds or more. The effect of these prints on the porters was quite marked. They were fearful, and loath to go on.
‘I completed the tricky task of taking Plaster of Paris moulds, one each of the right and left print made by the creature. The splayed toes were clearly those of a being who had never worn footwear of any kind, which at such temperatures effectively ruled out of the reckoning even the hardiest Sherpa.
‘I was now convinced that this was no wild goose chase, and was determined to push on, but the porters were fearful and would go no further. Ordering them to remain at the camp established on the snowline, I pushed on with the two guides.
‘At eighteen thousand feet the conditions were terrible. The thin air made every effort an act of will. Pinnacles of ice towered a hundred feet above us on all sides, and the winds could quickly produce frostbite on any part of the body left uncovered.
‘A deterioration in the weather forced us to bivouac for the night. A slight improvement at first light allowed the guides to go out and prepare for our next phase of exploration. They did not return. I went to search for them. To my consternation they were nowhere to be seen. The snow had ceased to fall and tracks in two different directions could be seen.
‘I followed one for some way up the mountain, and found one of my guides dead in a gully, the ice around him red with blood. His face and chest had been savagely torn. It seemed at that moment that the Yeti’s reputation as a gentl
e creature had been exposed as wishful thinking. Yet the footprints that led away from the body were not so deeply impressed into the snow, and I could make out a faint crease or scar running straight across the sole of each foot.
‘My position was difficult. If I let the other guide know what had happened, he might become frightened and refuse to go on. I was more than ever determined to carry out my task, and decided to bury the body and let the other guide believe that his compatriot had gone missing.
‘I was, however, troubled by what I had observed of the Yeti footprints. Had a smaller, perhaps female, creature killed the Guide in protection of its young? And what of those strangely regular creases across the feet?
‘The second guide was waiting at the bivouac, and I convinced him to go on. I had been told that Yeti had been sighted above twenty thousand feet, and I intended to reconnoitre at that height before descending.
‘The intermittent snows cleared long enough for me to get a glimpse of Everest’s peak, a terrifying pyramid of ice and darkness still looming gigantically above us. Then the weather deteriorated again and we were trapped by a blizzard.
‘The enforced immobility within the snow-bound tent lent itself to intense introspection. Such is, I believe, the cause of the obsessional magnification of perceived slights that produces “cabin fever”.
‘In my case, it allowed me to examine in my mind the bloody discovery in the gully. As I huddled under the flapping canvas, with the winds howling about me, I saw again the body and the prints in the snow. Gradually, I might say inevitably, an explanation for the shallow, smaller prints, and the marks across the soles, formed in my mind.
‘I waited patiently for the guide to leave the tent. When he did, I opened his pack. Inside I found what I had expected: my plaster casts, stolen and brought up from the advance camp, and with them the rough cords with which he had strapped them to his feet. There, Watson, at twenty thousand feet, I had uncovered a deviously planned murder, and was trapped with the murderer!
‘When he returned I behaved as though nothing had occurred in his absence. Who could say what feud, recent or ages old, had prompted him to hatch his plan? I was forced to rely on him to get me back to the advance camp, where the porters would guide me back to base camp and Lhasa.
‘I will never know if I gave myself away by some look or tone of voice, or whether he had simply planned from the first to do away with the only possible witness to his crime. In any case he took the first opportunity to leave me stranded on the mountain.
‘Things could hardly have been more serious. The murderer had only to return and tell the porters that I was dead, and they would all return to Lhasa with tales of my sad demise at the hands of the Demon of the Snows. I could expect no rescue.
‘I had no choice but to attempt a descent of the mountain alone. During every clear patch of weather I would make what progress I could, and then shelter from the returning blizzards. The temperature dropped to murderous levels, and my exhaustion and sickness were such, that it was all I could do to get up and move. I became convinced that I was not alone, but joined by a climbing rope to another person who walked behind me. I began to talk to this shadowy “other”, Watson, knowing as I did so, with a part of my mind, that there was no one there. I discussed and argued, and ranted over trivialities, and believed I was answered. At one point I grew convinced that it was you, Watson, trudging behind me down the treacherous slopes. Then the conviction grew in me that the figure behind was of quite another order. When I looked, the non-existent cord that joined us was hung with ragged weed, like the rigging of a long-sunken wreck, and I saw at its end, linked to me as though by an umbilical cord, the hateful form of the dead Moriarty. He had risen from the Falls, and was joined to me by cords that could never be broken.
‘After a long struggle through a blizzard, and a brief period of sleep in an ice cave, I awoke with the feeling of hot sand under my eyelids, and could see nothing.
‘I was snow blind and alone on Everest.
‘Of course I had looked death in the face before, but always at the hands of a human who could be outwitted or overcome. There was always hope. Now I knew that my position was hopeless. Blind on the mountain, I would freeze, or starve to death, very quickly. I knew that I was going to die.
‘It is a strange thing Watson, but even in such circumstances one struggles against hope to prolong life. I was tired, hungry, blind, frozen, and in pain from spreading frostbite, but I eked out what little food I had left, determined to live as long as possible.
‘Gradually, though, the inevitable degeneration occurred. I became too weak to move, and so cold that it seemed a strange new kind of warmth in which I luxuriated. I heard the snow demons then, in the shrieking winds around the mouth of the ice cave, and entered a weird hallucinatory world where I was safe and warm by the fire in Baker Street, but the walls, books, and familiar objects around me were all of ice. I slipped into unconsciousness, not even aware that I was dying.
‘Later—how much later I could never tell—I became aware that I was being carried, crushed by strong arms against a garment of stinking fur, through the howling wind. The thought came to me that the porters had found me, and that one of them, wrapped in protective Yak fur, was carrying me down the mountain.
‘After a period in the bitter wind, we entered shelter and silence. I was laid down on a dry, brittle surface of leaves, and a pungent, stinging liquid was rubbed into my frost-bitten limbs, and smeared roughly across my eyes. An attempt was made to make me drink a disgusting substance that made me sick. I realised that the simple soul was trying to administer some basic kind of medicine. Furs, reeking overwhelmingly of animal, were thrown over me, and gradually I slipped into cosy sleep, but not this time the counterfeit kind that accompanies icy death.
‘The treatment I received not only saved my life, but saved my fingers and toes. My sight was slower in returning, and I could barely make out blurs, but my strength grew as hunger and thirst forced me to take down the offered liquid and chew strips of dry, salty meat.
‘My few basic words of Tibetan were apparently pronounced too ineptly to elicit any response from my saviour, but a time came when I was dragged to my feet, out into blinding light and clear mountain air. A cold wind was blowing but there was no hint of snow. In my weakened state I could not walk for long, so I was lifted and carried at a swift pace down the slope.
‘A long while later I was set down against a rock. For some moments I sat there, squinting about me, and found to my relief that although my vision was still far from good, it was clearing sufficiently to enable me to make out a little more of my surroundings. Below me lay the end of the glacier, beyond which was base camp. As I scrambled to my feet I turned and scanned the icy terrain for my rescuer. At first I could see nothing but a great blur of white. Then I saw a huge dark shape climbing swiftly away to disappear into the eternal snows.
‘I managed to reach base camp, and was taken on a makeshift stretcher all the way to Lhasa.
‘The murderer had not returned from the mountain, and the plaster casts of the footprints were lost. I had no evidence to offer, but I could give some information to the Head Lama that caused the young Dalai Lama much joy and peace of mind. It was the statement that in my humble opinion Khang Mi, the Mountain Man, needed no spiritual instruction, as he already embodied the highest principles of Buddhism.’
Holmes turned and looked about him, his face gaunt in the moonlight that fell through the window.
‘It is the snow, Watson; the snow and the howling wind and the threat of some fearful thing waiting in the darkness. The ice demons have returned, and I have allowed the shadows they cast to eclipse my powers.’
‘I can well understand that, Holmes. Any man would react in the same way. But you have a duty to the slain. Think of Mr Sturleson only hours ago: his fear for his wife and child. It is still in our power to save them. We can ensure that his last fear is never realised; that both his children should not suffer this curs
e.’
‘All Watson,’ interjected Sherlock Holmes, matter of factly. ‘Mr Sturleson said all his children.’
‘So he did, Holmes! So he did! Do you see what this means? He would not have said all if he had only two! There must be another child of whom we are not aware!’
‘Yes,’ said Holmes despondently, ‘That was obvious, as is the next conclusion which you are doubtless just about to offer, namely that if the whole family is too ashamed to even mention this sibling, then the person in question is either a criminal or is locked away in an institution.’
I struggled to conceal how disappointed I was to find that my flash of inspiration was not as original as I had thought.
‘So this sibling, as a criminal or escaped patient, is surely our killer!’
Before Holmes could reply, Dodds the butler approached. I met him half way and asked him what he wanted, determined that Holmes should not be disturbed without good reason. To my annoyance, he spoke some irrelevant and trivial nonsense about a stolen knife from the cutlery cupboard. I told him not to bother us with such matters, but Holmes came over and asked Dodds what was wrong. When he heard he insisted on seeing the cupboard at once.
‘I have asked Dodds to let me know of anything that happens, Watson, anything at all. Remember what the Good Book tells us about even the lowliest sparrow.’
At the cutlery cupboard Holmes examined the area minutely, paying particular attention to some dirty foot marks caused by wet feet on the carpet.
‘One silver knife taken,’ mused Sherlock Holmes with apparent interest.
‘Not for the value of the item, clearly,’ I offered, exasperated at the triviality of the whole matter. ‘Who would leave so much silver here and steal only one silver knife?’
I had hoped that I might stir Holmes by these words, but the effect upon him surprised even me. He straightened up, turned to me with the old fire in his eyes, and slapped me on the shoulder.