Part 9 (1/2)
”I had tangled with both these agents earlier, though we neverto me what he knew of them from earlier adventures ”Dorjiloff was a ins were in, born in Siberia east of Lake Baikal at a place called Azochozki His youth was misspent, and he soon ran afoul of the Tsarist police He was arrested for murder and petty larceny and sent to a labour camp in the Urals From there he escaped and came to London, where I first became aware of him You may recall the unresolved murder of Sir Samuel Soames, Watson”
”Indeed, I do Soames was a wealthy merchant of Liverpool, as stabbed to death by a street thiefin Russell Square, if I remember correctly”
”Excellent, Watson It was no street thief who perpetrated the crime, of course, and I traced thein London, of which Dorjiloff was a prominent member Unfortunately, he avoided ery He eventually hai From there he returned to Russia and hid in a Buddhist norant an the study of the Buddhist religion Following his ordination, he left Russia and travelled in Mongolia He took the Tibetan na at last in Tibet, he entered the Drepung monastery as an authority onhis stay he went often to Lhasa, where began to exercise great influence over the Regent and thereby upon the child as the Grand Lama Undetected by the Russian authorities, he returned to Moscohere he becaious teacher He came to the attention of the superstitious Tsar hiht hi influence In both the Russia and Tibet, he soon becae Russified Tibetan name that means ”Man of the Thunder Bolt”
I marvelled at Holmes' account and the wealth of detail that he commanded about his enemies even after so many years
”Of Yamamoto I learned little more than I already knew,” he continued ”I had come across his name in the Tokyo Police Reports, where he was described as a petty thief who had fled japan and settled in Shanghai There, because of his knowledge of Chinese, he becaent of the japanese in China Froent is an ever more common path to success He was married for a ti one of the only japanese to know both Chinese and Tibetan he caught the eye of high officials in the Imperial Court, who sent him to Lhasa as the leader of a trade mission For several years, he and Dorjiloff had worked in concert against our interests, each e, and it ith thein”
Holh the facts that poured forth from his brain ”So much for my two adversaries, Watson I won't bore you further Let it suffice to say that by now Lhasa presented sufficient crio even without the secret oal was to find Manning, or to learn what had happened to him I hoped to find him still alive, for I doubted that the Tibetans would risk killing or i a British envoy, unless, that is, someone such as Dorjiloff forced the issue or killed hi direct intervention of the Viceroy, and whatever Dorjiloff's desires in this respect, my researches indicated that the Tibetan Government itself appeared to , restrained The old Regent still wielded considerable power and influence, and it ith hiet near him He apparently received almost no one these days and remained in the Potala, where he dictated the life of Tibet”
Holmes stopped his account of his researches there Those days in Florence he still rest the happiest and most carefree of his existence, for he had no lack of servants, and no task save the one at hand He e days of study fully confident that he knehat he had to know to accomplish the mission He had become in a short time what he could only call an Orientalist
True to the minister's promise, after those days of relentless study, Holmes was taken to the central station in Florence, where he boarded a train for Naples There he switched to another that took hiht to Brindisi, where he boarded the shter, the SS Downes-Porter, in the earlyfor Alexandria and then Bo idle hours imposed upon him in further study of the notes and docuraphs of Manning, Ya to raphs of the Grand Laent, as far as Holmes could ascertain, had circuraph hiistered none in his collections One of the faure who, Hol The photograph showed a tall, rather gauntnext to the child chosen to becolasses, his hair in a braid tied round his head The picture was faded and improperly focussed, and Holmes found his features most curious Another document which he perused constantly was a detailed ether himself from the maps in the Italian collection So well, however, did he memorise the streets and so vivid had the monuments of the city become, that he felt by the tie that he had already walked through even its back alleys He also had rams of the Potala, both its outer ramparts and its inner corridors and rooms, which he also coe-become almost instinctive, so well had he drilled hiive hierous circumstances
”We docked in Bombay just over three weeks after our departure from Italy,” he continued ”By this time, I was in despair over the shi+p's food, the enforced rest, and the shted therefore e first gli mists It was my first taste of the Orient, Watson, but I ht soon passed into disappointrandiose public monuments, Bombay atte one drab and run-down, a metropolis totally misplaced in the tropical cli in the streets trying to survive the vicissitudes of an indifferent fate The rains had been heavy and the city was soaked through The air et and reeked of huer to leave on my mission”
Holmes's first task was to meet with officials of Government, but they were at once unhelpful and unconcerned What appeared as a grave probleent Indeed, Lhasa seemed farther from Bombay than it was from London In addition, the Viceroy himself had been called out of India unexpectedly and was on his way to Buroon and was therefore unreachable If Holmes was to keep to his schedule, therefore, he would have to pick his own route and travel to Lhasa on his own Out of several routes that he had studied, he chose one of the shorter ones, and the very one taken by Manning This was the one through the western Himalayas that leads directly to the Tibetan plateau From there, he would follow an eastern route to the sacred city of Lhasa And so boarding a train to Pathankot in the Punjab, and froan the ascent, sometimes on foot, sometimes on horseback, to the Kulu Valley, thence to Spiti and Zanskar It was in Zanskar that he was roup of Kashmiri traders ere on their way to the holy city They invited him to join their caravan
”It has been said, Watson, that no stranger can enter Tibet without the knowledge of the Tibetan Governe caravan, I entered unobserved I was not questioned at the various checkposts, and at almost every point I was allowed to proceed without difficulty Only on one occasion was I noticed, and that was just outside shi+gatse, the last post before Lhasa I produced the docuerson, and stated that I was on a scientific ical specih without delay and continued on with ard for Scandinavians, and regarded them without the suspicion that they reserved for British citizens and those of the major powers My special status as an emissary of the British Government I was to reveal only to the authorities in the Potala, and I kept it hidden froh this last post, I was finally in Tibet, and as I gazed around reat heat of the sun and the high altitude”
The Tibetan plateau appeared to Holmes as it has appeared to so many travellers: a vast expanse of e Fierce winds blew, and the sun scorched hi theh vault of cloudless sky that seehest altitudes, and the way therefore exhausting Holht at times
When they reached the valley of the Brahh its elevation is almost twelve thousand feet, this valley in which lies the capital city of Tibet was filled with vegetation, and he travelled with far greater ease One , shortly after they had resumed their journey beyond Gyantse, the city of Lhasa appeared-or rather, the Potala-that immense edifice that houses the Grand La sun atop the hill on which it sits north of the city, an unexpected piece of Oriental splendour It was in stark contrast to the city of Lhasa itself, which soon appeared at the end of a broad avenue lined with large trees, and it was not long before the caravan entered the central bazaar
”Lhasa,only a few thousand inhabitants in its stone houses and narrow lanes Its appearance is better from afar, for closer inspection reveals a city covered with soot and dirt, with no orderly plan The streets are full of dogs, so bits of hide which lie about in profusion, elooood one, for the poverty and pri, the people were friendly and courteous, varied and colorful, and the city was filled with the activity of an amiable, even innocent, hue where foreign guests were housed before they met their official hosts It was from here that he made his initial attempts to make contact with the Tibetan Government His papers were politely accepted by an official of the Potala, but he was inforent hiin It was soon apparent that Tibetan officialdoreed to receive hi, the official checked a list of foreign visitors and duly informed him that no one by that name had ever visited Lhasa He was most cordial but firm, and Holmes knew then that his ould take extraordinary patience
In the delay, he was afforded the tiin private inquiries about Manning, who now, it see to locate hi every inch of the old Lhasa At its centre lies the , a most ornate edifice, heavy with incense, and filled with rims, and the sacred idols of a superstitious people Around it and in the adjacent alleys are the shops, residences, and offices of rey stone buildings, hich Holhly faht Hols he had not learned in the countless books that he had perused in Italy Like all things huood in it, perhaps more than there is in ours But there is a dark side as well, of which they are very reed, cruelty, lust, and ious systehly developed one, with spiritual attainre efforts But the Tibetan life, despite these accomplishments, is for the majority of extreme difficulty and poverty Tibetans are farmers and herders ruled by a small priestly class and an aristocracy who set the rules by which the majority lives These rules are extremely harsh and resemble the criminal law of our own mediaeval epoch The rack, the ordeal, various ancient tortures such as dise, dismemberment, public executions, are all practised for the most heinous of crimes The harshness of these rules appears to have little effect on the cris of thieves and ers, merchants, and priests alike No trade route is truly safe, and the large caravans that travel between the Tibetan plateau and the Indian plains are usually well armed
”Despite its isolation and reputation for impenetrability,” said Holmes,” I soon became aware that Lhasa housed a number of people from other parts of the world There were a variety of merchants, mainly Kashmiri, Nepalese, and Chinese, for the Tibetans in Lhasa are loath to engage in business on their own There were also a nued in honest activity and researches concerning Tibetan belief and practice Areat student of Tibetan literature, and Marie le Carre, an exuberant and eccentric disciple of Buddhism from Provence But others had bribed their way in with the collusion of corrupt officials I quickly spotted Sackville-Grierous of arsonists, Platon Gilbert, one of the cruelest murderers of modern France, the infamous German counterfeiter, Wilamowitz-Moellendorf, and finally, Sviadek, notorious as the Gallician cannibal These and others were there as long as either money was to be made or they were protected by the Tibetan Government, petty criminals and quacks, y to leave and so found thetime residents of the so-called Forbidden City None of these, when interrogated, professed any knowledge of Williaht that Holmes met Gorashar, the most successful merchant of Lhasa He was taken to his house by one of the Kashmiri merchants hom he had travelled from Zanskar Gorashar was a Newar froent and i and trusted no one He welcoarette, and Hol Gorashar's lavish ho became the site of an elaborate salon which almost all of the peculiar denizens of the city attended Evenings there included elaborate banquets, punctuated by ga in almost all its varieties, all of which were accompanied by the constant consumption of intoxicants, either in their local , or in the h his agents in St Petersburg The air was always thick with the sunja, and the ears were often assaulted by a band of Indian musicians from Calcutta who attempted peculiar Oriental renditions of the seductive ditties that one associates with the deht well iine, Watson, it was not an atenial, and were it not for my mission, I would have removed myself at once It was clear to me, however, that Gorashar's establish's entertains, a feast for the eye of the detective I found myself constantly drawn to it The room was filled with the riff-raff of four continents What a delight, dear Watson Here, in this large and crowded roolobe, there erous criminals with the worst mountebanks and pious bewilderers known to the civilised world Soine a host of criuises-shaven heads and eyebrows, glass eyes, wigs, long beards, scars, tattoos, fake li the oddest limps, canes and crutches of exoticthe scene beforethat I could have uninterrupted observation Remote Lhasa, the roland, had become a cesspool not unlike London, far smaller perhaps, but one with its own poisonous aspects, one in which the profound religious life of the Tibetan people served as the scenic backdrop for the nefarious activities of international roguery So many who had apparently disappeared frouises in this exotic land before they returned-transforht, neither Scotland Yard, the French Surete, nor the New York Depart of their whereabouts”
I could not help but interrupt Holmes at this point in his story
”Extraordinary luck, Holuise and charlatanry”
”It was a rooliostros, Watson, and I add the curious but interesting ians, 'charlatan' is the only word that coh the Italian language”
We both laughed heartily, and he continued
”But of even more importance, Watson, was the fact that Gorashar's salon was also one of the places where the most important ent, Tibetan as well as other officials, ements that influenced the lives of the Tibetan people, alnorant of what transpired late into the night in the confines of this one house No contrast was greater than that of the daily life of the ordinary Tibetan, with its hardshi+ps and religious piety, but with its s at Gorashar's, where the piety of the rity of the ruler, and the honesty of the peasant, were often transformed into their dark opposites One would think that in this atmosphere I would have come upon a clue, a trace, a word slipped into a conversation-even incidentally-about Manning, but there was nothing This absolute silence paradoxically became the only clue: it was as if a co' was not to be uttered If the silence was absolute, then so must be the fear”
As the first weeks passed, Hol experience of crime that if he persevered, his very presence in Lhasa would eventually force so had disappeared coreeted with a blank stare
As in so h in the past, however, there was a sudden and abrupt change Events began to an to see the first dim outline of what had transpired before his arrival and as about to unfold before him
The first of these events was ly unrelated to his mission, led him to the first clue It was near noon, and he had walked already for alh the crowded bazaar to the outskirts of the city A sentry stationed near the city wall prohibited hi any farther and he turned back The sun was already alht to endure, and he sat for a moethe re it to rot only a few yards away A group of wild street dogs that had followed, ravenously hungry, began greedily gnawing at the abandoned carcass Suddenly, a large group of vultures gathered in the sky above and descended, their large wings flapping furiously These obscene creatures, abhorrent in their habits and appearance, began to fight for their rights to the carrion A battle of loathsos, smaller in number but no less ferocious, were forced to retreat from the scene by the talons of these des took their toll: one of the vultures lay e unearthly noise e from its beak As soon as they had finished with the yak, the other great birds descended on their moribund companion, and in a few minutes had reduced the unfortunate creature to a second pile of bones glea in the noonday sun
It was only then, after the vultures had floay, that Hol stuck to one of the dead vulture's talons It had glinted in the sun He walked over and saw that it was a piece of ed it free It was a brass button, obviously of English manufacture There were several black threads still attached to it It bore the letters WM, the initials of Willia He placed it in his pocket for later scrutiny As he turned back towards the city, he found hi at the Potala Only then did he sense how that immense edifice dominated not only the city of Lhasa, but his 's disappearance ht Eventually, if all else failed, he would have to gain entrance to it and pursue his search within its vast chas and spent the re his find of the strangewith the implacable silence that Lhasa presented How did the button find its way to its gruesome location? For the first ti's life
Towards nightfall, having 's fate, he decided to attend Gorashar's soiree once again As he walked into the great central room, he saw Dorjiloff and Ya since his arrival and had just returned Behind the of dark shapes formed by the criminals and cranks whom he had come to know inhabited the holy city They appeared to be in deep conversation with Octave Mirbeau, a French doctor visiting Lhasa whom Holmes had met previously As Gorashar introduced him, Holmes noticed that Dorjiloff was shorter than he reraphs Dressed in Chinese red and gold brocade robes, his bald head, dark pointed beard, and piercing dark eyes gave hirace, and his robes did not hide his lithe and h when Holmes was introduced by Gorashar He looked directly into Holht that he was anything other than the botanist he claimed to be
Yamamoto was very different in appearance than memory served He was a slender man, and his movements were those of one ell acquainted with buritsu and the other japanese e for his body, however, and his thick glasses and large ears gave hinified the aze Mirbeau, there to treat the Grand La forth about his experiences in Lhasa Hollish was minimal, however, and the conversation proceeded almost entirely in French The doctor was an acute observer of Tibetan life, and had been given special privileges by the Regent This enabled hi the disposal of the dead and several executions He had even visited a group of criminals on display in what he called le jardin des supplices, or the Garden of Punishments, a place that Holmes assuuard that veryMirbeau appeared to have a veritable thirst for the disciplines and punishments of Tibetan life, all of which ell concealed froh stone walls, they wander in cages set about their heads,” he said, ”their hands unable to reach their mouths, so that they must rely on the charity of the people to survive One of them is near death In Tibetan eyes, his criold alloy in his paintings of the Buddha rather than the pure metal The buzzards sit and wait for hi more of what he saw, and as he spoke, Holmes realised that the place of cri was As Mirbeau talked, his eyes wandered across the roo towards the, raven black hair, she moved quickly up to Mirbeau She was Tibetan but spoke French as well as English Mirbeau introduced her as Pema, a princess of A, a princely official in the Tibetan Government who had been recently reported killed in a battle in Kha around her, and then said in a whisper to Holmes, ”He is still alive”
Yamamoto suddenly appeared by her side, and the princess became at once visibly nervous and uncomfortable at his approach She see further, but after her quick whisper, Yaood-bye to our host, and led her frouests left shortly thereafter, and as the crowd thinned, Hol at him fro at his side was a short, sallow ed to be Rastrakoff, Dorjiloff's accoerson, you are a naturalist, I understand”
”Yes,” Holmes replied, ”and there is much to study here in Tibet”
”I study only the people,” said Dorjiloff with a laugh ”And I pay great attention to all visitors Tell erson”
As he spoke, Holhed every word he uttered, for he was there to make sure that no one entered Tibet as inimical to Russian interests
”Wherein lies your erson, in plants or animals?'
”In both,” Holmes replied
”How so?”
”Because I am interested in poisonsand their antidotes”
”How interesting, Dr Sigerson And which poisons in particular?”
”There are rows everywhere, and certain arachnidae seem to have proliferated”
”You know of the wolf-man?”
”Yes, of course, a deadly species, but imported from outsidelike certain snakes”