The Oriental Casebook of Sherlock Holmes (12 page)

He grew silent again. I could see the intense struggle for comprehension that must have covered his face as he sat in that old lodge in Katmandu.

“I stared at Hodgson’s words in that old tome, Watson, the smell of fifty years of Asiatic mould filling my nostrils. I sat foraging through my memory, checking every similarity, every detail that I knew or could infer as probable, against the activities of thousands of criminals. What I had experienced so far was uniquely singular. I then turned the question around and asked it in a most general way: If I were to ascribe the aforementioned criminal activities to any one person, living or dead, who would it be? I could arrive at only one answer to that question, and it was very disturbing.”

Holmes paused, waiting for me to give the inevitable answer: “Moriarty himself !” I ejaculated.

“Good, Watson, good, but not quite good enough. That Moriarty was capable of the grand intrigue that I had uncovered in Nepal was indubitable. But it was also certain that he was dead. There was no possibility of his having returned from the Reichenbach Falls. No, Moriarty’s bones were by now bare and chalk-white at the bottom of that awful abyss.”

“Who, then?” I asked anxiously. “Perhaps one of his lieutenants, some of whom approached him in ability? Colonel Moran, perhaps?”

“Someone who had the potential for just as great if not greater evil. Not one of his close associates qualified, not even Moran. And, equally important, not one of them was present in Katmandu, as far as I knew. The criminals whom I knew to be there and recognised would be of the greatest use to a master criminal, but not one of them could have been described as such. No, Watson, I began to think of a very different person.”

Here he paused for several moments. Then he began anew.

“I have often spoken to you of my brother, Mycroft, and how he possesses to an even greater degree than I the abilities of observation and deduction that I have inherited. In the same way, Watson, there is, or was, one person, capable of more intelligent evil than Professor Moriarty: his brother James. This conclusion came to me as I sat in Gorashar’s study. You will recall, Watson, that James Moriarty wrote a defence of his brother in which he alleged that I had fabricated the whole case against him, that he was the innocent victim of the hallucinatory ravings of Sherlock Holmes?”

“Indeed, I do remember, and it was in your defence that I broke my silence and described the events as they were known to me until that time.”

“Until this point, I knew only of James Moriarty’s existence, for he had engaged in no criminal activities and had had little contact with his more academic brother. What had put him on his present path I did not know, but I was certain that he was my adversary. This belief was confirmed by the fortunate arrival of Mycroft’s response to my message, which I deciphered at once. It read:

My Dear Sherlock:

My apologies. It took me a bit longer than I thought to locate a copy of Jorgensen’s lexicon of the language of the Kusunda, but once I did, decipherment was easy and your message quite clear. In answer to your question, Hodgson is still alive, though very old. He was too weak to converse at length, but he confirmed the fact that he had taken a Nepalese mistress in Katmandu, and that she had died many years ago. This fact is known to several members of his family. There were two children from this liaison, whom he sent to his sister to raise and to school in Amsterdam. The children did not survive, for they were lost at sea off the cost of Ireland. Your other suspicions are quite correct. Richardson’s wife is in the clutches of one James Morrison, who has become her lover. Of the greatest import to you is the fact that in reality he is James Moriarty, the brother of your deceased nemesis. How he has recently been converted to criminal behaviour is most interesting, and I shall relate it to you when we meet. In the meantime, exercise extreme caution, for his whereabouts at present are unknown. I cannot trace him beyond a berth on the H.M.S. Prince of Wales, bound for Sydney, but stopping in Calcutta, which means of course that he may not be far away and indeed may be looking for you.

Mycroft

“I looked forward to meeting with Mycroft some day and hearing from him how he thought Morrison had become a criminal. But perhaps Mycroft’s explanations were unnecessary.

“And here, my dear Watson, permit me a brief digression, for what I say to you now occurred to me at that very moment as I put the match to Mycroft’s message. Perhaps, Watson, good and evil are no more than natural properties, woven into our racial structure, indifferent in themselves, like the colour of one’s eyes or the size of one’s nose. They may be indifferently combined with other traits. Some extraneous factor, perhaps a harsh experience, perhaps a chance meeting that enlivens one of these traits rather than the other, becomes the sufficient cause to determine a man’s nature. Randomly created with a preponderance of good or evil, men become natural adversaries when these qualities are combined with intellect and will. It is then their intellect that identifies them to each other as mortal enemies, and the will that immediately opposes them. More than that is unclear to me, but my own experience supports what I have just said as a working hypothesis, one that I shall explore in retirement should that time ever come.

“In any case, I had now identified my implacable adversary and had to assume that he might have somehow identified me. The final meeting was inevitable, the circumstances under which it would take place still unknown, and its outcome, whatever it might be, something that I faced by now with a certain equanimity.”

I listened with rapt attention as my friend related to me these latest revelations. His theory of good and evil natures led me to pose a question: “Surely, Holmes, the inheritance of such traits as good and evil and the like mean very little unless the sum of inherited traits is known. You have often remarked that Mycroft’s abilities of observation and deduction surpass even yours, and yet, as you have also noted, Mycroft’s lack of energy prohibited him from any practical results in the field of crime detection. Surely, James Moriarty must have differed in some way from his brother, the evil professor, that would have aided you in apprehending him.”

Holmes smiled. “You are quite correct, Watson, and I thank you for your words of wisdom. Indeed, Moriarty
frère
had a severe fault. He had a violent and cruel temper that impelled him on to action that he would not have taken had his reason maintained control. The sudden and uncontrolled anger toward Rizzetti and the beating of Mrs. Richardson were two examples of this. I learned of a third that very day upon my return to the Residence. I had decided that, rather than let matters run their course, I would confront Daniel Wright and ask to be taken to Moriarty, alias Morrison. When I entered the Residence compound, I learned that Lucy Richardson had gone out for the afternoon, hoping to learn word of her father, and that Wright was in his study and would see no one. After the guard left, I decided to enter his office unannounced.

“‘Wright was there, but he was dead. He had been stabbed in the same way that the foul Rizzetti had been. There were signs of a struggle everywhere. Uncontrollable anger at the Resident’s escape had led Moriarty to kill his chief ally.”

Holmes examined the dead man and his clothing carefully. His private papers indicated that his real name was Saunders, that he had served in the Indian army as a medical orderly, but that he had been discharged for violent acts against his men as well as financial improprieties. He evidently had been hired by Moriarty after his arrival in India, probably in Calcutta, where Saunders had been living the life of a vagrant after his discharge.

Nothing among Saunders’s effects revealed Moriarty’s whereabouts. Holmes examined the contents of his medical bag closely. His search revealed a number of almost empty vials. They contained the minute remains of a number of poisons, some of which where locally prepared and of the greatest potency. Some of these Saunders had obviously fed to Richardson, in small doses but sufficient to cause great pain, intense fever, and physical deterioration. Doubtlessly, they had been prepared by Rizzetti before his death.

“There was nothing else, except a rather odd passage written on a piece of paper on Saunders’s desk. It appeared to be written in Saunders’s own hand. It resembled a passage from the chronicle that the pandits were translating. It read: “And there shall be great bursts of thunder and light, vast explosions in the night, and a crazed Brahman shall kill an untouchable. And Kalanki shall ride into the city on a white horse. And the people shall rejoice in their new God, for he will reveal himself as the new Vishnu and their new king.”

Holmes summoned the two pandits and asked them to take charge of Saunders’s body. They were to notify the Nepalese government of the recent events in the Residence. I asked them about the words on Saunders’s desk and they confirmed the fact that they were part of the prophetic passages from the ancient chronicle. Saunders, alias Wright, had been particularly interested in the prophetic passages in the book, but they did not know why. I then took it upon myself to notify Lord Dufferin, the Viceroy, in Calcutta of the recent events. This I did using the wireless in the Residence.

“My hope of being taken to Moriarty had failed, and I now, alone and unaided, faced the monumental task of finding him, probably lurking in a subterranean lair somewhere beneath the streets and alleys of Katmandu. Saunders was the only one I knew who might have led me to him. I could not mount a search alone in such a labyrinth, for once I entered it I would in all likelihood never come out alive. No, I had to know beforehand where the minotaur had his lair and I had to lure him out.”

Holmes’s frustration turned to despair when he was informed by a sobbing attendant that Lucy Richardson had disappeared in the bazaar. He had to assume the worst, that she had fallen into the clutches of the second Moriarty, and that he had been checkmated.

Holmes fell silent at this juncture and I could see on his face the agony of despair that he had lived through at that dark moment. I had seen this only rarely in the past in England, for here he disposed of numerous resources that helped him in his battles, but in the alien world where he had found himself, he was thrown completely on his own. Unstated too was an obvious affection that had been awakened in him by Lucy Richardson, an affection which he did not mention but which played subtly on his face even now when he spoke her name. The well-cultivated armour that protected him from his own emotions had indeed been pierced by this brave young woman, and the usual clarity of his mind had been confused by this unexpected confrontation with his own hitherto rarely used emotions.

“I questioned Miss Richardson’s attendant closely,” he said. “They had been walking in a gully near Asantol, she said, when they unexpectedly encountered a crowd of people come to see a large procession of idols. The procession separated them, but she could still see Miss Richardson, who was talking to a Nepalese gentleman whom she followed through a small doorway. The procession of idols followed through the doorway, which led into a monastery courtyard, but even though the attendant managed to reach the doorway, she was unable to find Miss Richardson or anyone knowing in which direction she had gone. It was as if she had disappeared into thin air. The attendant then raced back to the Residence to report on what had happened.”

Holmes had no doubt that Lucy was now in the clutches of Moriarty and had been led on initially by word that he, under the alias of Morrison, wished to see her. She had probably been taken to him through one of the innumerable entrances to the underground system.

“I left the Residence and returned to the hotel. Gorashar led me to the inner area where Richardson had been hidden. When I saw him, I realised that his health had begun to recover, for he had begun to eat and his pain had eased considerably. I decided to tell him everything, including the possibility of Lucy’s capture by Morrison. He was of course amazed at my long discourse and what it revealed to him about his wife’s life in England and the sufferings of his daughter. He could shed no light on Moriarty’s whereabouts, however, nor did he know anything of the underground system beneath the city of Katmandu.”

Holmes returned to his room, still trying to find the clue that would let him know where Moriarty was and the grand design of his evil plans. He reviewed all in his mind: the murder of Rizzetti; the elaborate attempt to kill Richardson and to scare him with false apparitions; the murder of Wright before he arrived in Katmandu; the murder of Saunders, and the mysterious prophecies written on his desk in his own hand; and finally, the disappearance of Lucy Richardson in a religious procession. As he turned these matters over in his mind, he scrutinised every detail that had been offered. It was then that he remembered the bamboo fragments that he had picked up in the old dhara in the Residence garden. He took them out of his pocket and placed them on the table. They had been smashed by Richardson’s bullets, but the few fragments that he fitted together formed a curved piece about four inches long. Suddenly, as he stared at these innocuous fragments, they jogged something in his memory, something that he recalled reading in another one of Hodgson’s old essays. He began to see the pattern that had escaped him until then, and within a few seconds he saw the entire scheme, the whole ingenious, mad plan. All was revealed by contemplating a few pieces of shattered bamboo, for if he was correct, they linked everything together. The only question now was whether he could act in time.

“There was a sudden knock at my door, and Lakshman appeared with a note. I opened it and read:

My Dear Holmes:

By the time you receive this, events will have moved far beyond anything that you can do to prevent them. I had suspected for a long time that you had escaped the Reichenbach Falls, but I finally became sure of your presence here through my interception of your message from your brother. You have done well in your disguises, but you have already caused me not inconsiderable inconvenience, and I shall be happy to settle with you in due course.