The Oriental Casebook of Sherlock Holmes (24 page)

Curious about the provenance of the new knife, I walked over and pulled it from the wall, inadvertently letting the correspondence flutter audibly to the floor. I heard Holmes suddenly pull himself up in his chair.

“Boredom,” he sniffed, “is the only true gift of the gods, Watson. And the gold knife is from Tibet, should you be at all interested. It is a most unusual weapon. Note the distinctive fullering of the double-edged blade and the initial ‘S’ that appears on the quillon. These details tell us immediately that the blade is of recent English manufacture and, judging from its slight curvature, is a modified version of one of Major Henry Shakespear’s deadly creations. The gold handle was of course cast in Tibet, possibly hundreds of years ago.”

I made no immediate response to my friend’s remarks, but returned to my seat to examine the knife. It had a blade about seven inches in length of fine steel that was embedded in a slightly shorter handle that appeared to be of solid gold. The handle showed almost no signs of wear but bore decorations and an inscription. I noted what appeared to be the sun and moon, and the fylfot as it is known in British heraldry, or Buddhist swastika, here presumably a religious symbol, and an inscription in beautiful elegant characters that I could not read. The language I assumed to be the Tibetan.

“Indeed, I am most interested, particularly if there is a tale associated with it,” I answered belatedly, with feigned indifference.

“Then even though your never-ending curiosity in my exploits threatens my beloved Demoiselle Ennui,” he said, “I shall tell you the tale of the gold knife and my trip to Lhasa.”

He tossed the morning papers that had lain across his chest onto the floor. The boredom suddenly left his eyes, and I could almost see his brain running through the sequence of events that had transpired several years before as it reached his lips. I was inwardly overjoyed at his sudden decision to reveal his life in Tibet, but I did not press him, lest he draw back as he had done several times in the past. He had mentioned his life in Lhasa only in passing, the first time in his brief account of his escape from the Reichenbach Falls. But until now, he had resisted all attempts on my part to wrest from him even the smallest portion of his Tibetan adventures. I knew only what I had previously reported to the public: that he had lived there under the name of Sigerson, a Norwegian explorer and naturalist.

“You see, Watson,” he began, “my trip to Lhasa was not due to any whim of mine, but to a secret mission which I undertook under the highest authority of Government. If I have shown a certain reluctance to divulge the details until now, it is because several principals in the matter would have been injured by their disclosure. This morning’s paper announced the death of the last of these, and so I am now free to add these exploits to your chronicles.”

He took the knife from my hand, moving his long, thin fingers slowly along the blade.

“As I have related to you before, except for the late, unlamented Colonel Sebastian Moran, Moriarty’s chief henchman, only one other person was sure that I had survived the fateful encounter at the Reichenbach Falls, and that was my brother, Mycroft, to whom alone I communicated the fact of my fortunate but unexpected survival. It was shortly after my arrival in Florence a week later that I informed him that I was alive. A few days later, I received a message from him in the secret code that we shared, saying that special emissaries of Government were on their way to see me:

My dear Sherlock,

It was good of you to inform me of your final victory and survival in the battle with your great adversary, but in truth I expected no less of you. My compliments. The world is surely a better place now that Moriarty is no more.

This is perhaps not the best moment to intrude upon your privacy or to add to your woes, considering your recent escapades, but a matter that will be before you shortly is of the greatest urgency. It involves a mission of extreme importance and great danger. I shall understand if you decline, but I believe that you are the only individual I know capable of bringing it off. You must forgive me, therefore, for having suggested to the authorities that you would be the ideal person to execute it. Representatives of the highest authority are on their way to you to discuss the matter. Please consider it carefully, Sherlock, for in addition to taking you far from your known enemies for a time, it will enable you to serve the most pressing needs of the Empire. It involves a long trip to one of the remotest corners of the civilised world. Expect to hear shortly, therefore, from a certain Florentine gentleman, one Signor Berolini.

As your executor, I have taken charge of your personal affairs, which, I trust, will be in good order when you eventually return. A distraught Watson has just placed your obituary in the papers and is now writing up what he believes to be your “final problem.” Although my sympathies go out to him, I agree with you that the deception of a sincerely grieving friend is necessary to your long-term survival.

Mycroft

“I was immediately gratified by my brother’s expression of trust in me, Watson, but I confess that I felt no immediate enthusiasm for the mission he mentioned. Mycroft, as you know, is the most brilliant mind available to our Government. Indeed, as I have remarked on previous occasions, in some important ways he
is
the British Government. His message to me held important clues: the remotest corner of the civilised world could only mean somewhere in Asia, and in Asia most probably Tibet, that perennial goal of the romantic Englishman. But I assure you that what transpired in Tibet, or in any other remote corner of the world for that matter, was then farthest from my mind. After Moriarty’s death, having dodged the rocks thrown down on me by Colonel Moran, I had taken to my heels, torn and bleeding, and had done ten miles in the darkness over the mountains before I boarded a train to Italy. The reaction of a terrible weariness was upon me, and I knew that I should be limp as a rag for many days to come.”

Holmes suddenly rose and began pacing back and forth in front of me. He did not have to wait long, he said, to find out more about the proposed mission. It was towards evening a day later, that the
portiere
in the
pensione
where he had taken a room handed him a note:

Please meet me at seven this evening at the Piazza della Signoria about the urgent matter of which you have already been informed. Under the Medusa head.

Suo dev. mo

Sg. Berolini

The last reference was of course to the famous statue of Perseus by Cellini that still graces the central piazza of Florence. And it was to that place that Holmes walked slowly from his
pensione
, arriving at exactly seven o’clock. He placed himself near the statue and looked around. It was the hour of what is known in Italy as the
passeggiata
, and the square was filled with strollers walking arm in arm. Among them he saw striding towards him the only single figure, a short rather stout man, wearing a black overcoat and a fedora.

“I am Signor Berolini.” He bowed, addressing Holmes in measured but almost flawless Italian. “Please follow me,” he said. They walked over to a nearby bench not far from the piazza, where they sat and conversed.

“But you are an Englishman nonetheless,” Holmes replied, a bit sardonically perhaps. The man was a bit taken aback by his remark.

“How on earth did you know?” he cried out, breaking suddenly into English. “I have gone to great pains to create an Italian identity.”

“Then begin by taking the added trouble of employing an Italian barber to shape your moustache instead of trimming it yourself.”

Seeing that the man was crestfallen at his immediate exposure of him, Holmes did not continue in this vein, for he saw no reason to destroy the man’s already injured confidence.

“My name is really James Munro,” he said with a tight, embarrassed smile.

He handed Holmes a card that identified him as an agent of our foreign ministry, permanently assigned to the Italian peninsula. Holmes did not remark audibly on this part of his disguise, nor that he easily deduced that Munro had worked in Scotland Yard for a number of years.

“We shall leave here separately,” said Munro, “having recovered his composure, “and meet again in one hour at the address on the back of that card. Please memorise it. Any cab will take you there.”

He removed the card from Holmes’s hand and replaced it in his pocket. Rising quickly, he tipped his hat with a cheerful “
Auguri
” and disappeared into the crowd. Thorougly amused, Holmes sat there for a few moments alone, contemplating the piazza, one of the most beautiful of Italian creations. Then he hopped into a cab, asking the driver to take him to the assigned address.

It took almost an hour to reach his destination, a large villa beyond the old city limits on the southern route towards Rome, some hours from Montepulciano, Pienza, and the other beautiful towns that fill the Tuscan landscape. It was already dusk, and the shadows of the Italian pines were thrown softly everywhere by the golden setting sun.

Holmes alighted from the cab and was again met by Munro, alias Berolini, who stood at the gate, opening it as he approached. He followed him down the main path to a large villa that sat a few hundred yards back from the road behind a large garden. They entered and proceeded to the library in which two gentlemen, highly placed at the time in the British cabinet, were already seated. Holmes recognised one of them instantly; the other he knew by name. He has asked that I not reveal their identities. One of them, a ranking member of our foreign office who still carries great weight in the upper circles of government though he has since resigned, began the discussion.

“Mr. Holmes, I am here to explain to you in detail the mission to which your brother has alluded in his message to you. I sincerely hope that you will agree to take on the tasks that I am about to describe to you. Should you choose not to, however, I trust that all that will have transpired between us will be irrevocably forgotten and dismissed from your mind.”

Holmes nodded in assent. “You may speak frankly, Your Lordship, and I shall consider most seriously whatever you propose. I can assure you, however, that should your mission not suit me, I shall immediately dismiss it as well as any recollection of our meeting here this evening.”

“Then listen most carefully, Mr. Holmes. As you may be aware, the threat to our Indian Empire from the design of other Oriental powers continues to grow and perturb those of us who have the grave responsibility of maintaining our vast Empire in safety and order. Although the entire Subcontinent has been pacified internally for some time, the threat continues to grow from outside. The Russians, the Japanese, and at times those who manage the flickering energies of the Chinese empire stand ever ready to take from us what is by now rightfully deemed ours. They see our Indian possessions as the likely sources of their own eventual enrichment, knowing little of the costly civilising burden that we carry there. Although the defences of the Empire in India are strong, the threat grows in Central Asia, an area that, as you know, is almost totally closed to us and still little known at best. The Tsars have continued to conquer and plunder the region, moving their borders eastward to the confines of Tibet, where they already have their resident agents. The Japanese, their eyes constantly on a weakening and starving China, have already begun to depute their agents there as well. You perhaps have heard of the Russian lama Dorjiloff and the notorious Yamamoto of Kyoto.”

“The two have well-known criminal records, achieved long before they disappeared into the wilds of Tibet,” said Holmes confidently. “Dorjiloff is a man of the greatest intelligence and is extremely dangerous. He is wanted for a particularly brutal murder in Riga. Yamamoto is hardly Dorjiloff’s equal, though he has his talents. He is wanted in Shanghai for extortion and embezzlement. I have grappled with both in London, albeit at a distance and unfortunately without lasting success. Their reincarnations as Government agents have amused me for some time.”

“They have been in and out of Lhasa for several years,” continued the minister, “during which period our relations with the Tibetan government have come under serious strain. The Viceroy is already of the strong opinion that these agents, pursuing aggressive Tsarist and Japanese policies of expansion in the Orient, have moved the Tibetan government away from its traditionally neutral stance to one that could foreseeably cause us great trouble along our Himalayan border, thereby sowing the seeds of political dissatisfaction in the plains of Hindusthan as well. The ultimate objective is of course obvious: the removal of Britain as a power from the continent of Asia and the division of the spoils between Tsar and Emperor. I myself regard the latter as almost unthinkable considering our present strength. But I am also a person of prudence, one whose task it is in government to make sure that not even the slightest step along this path is taken.”

“I understand your concerns,” said Holmes. “What, then, are the immediate circumstances that have brought you here?”

“Recent events led us at first to believe that matters were about to improve. This past year, the Chinese government agreed to a treaty that would begin the regularisation of our relations with Tibet. In order to stabilise these relations, we asked that the treaty be signed as soon as possible. The Chinese agreed, but they have only nominal control over the Tibetans and could only meekly request Tibetan compliance. Indeed, the constantly weakening Chinese government proved too feeble to obtain Tibetan consent. As soon as certain elements within the Tibetan government who are unfriendly to us became aware of some of the provisions of the treaty, they began, deliberately and presumably with the aid of agents such as Dorjiloff, to undermine it. Boundary markers were uprooted and destroyed, border patrols were attacked, and, most impudently, English merchants were prevented from plying their trade. The most egregious example of this dastardly conduct occurred when the only road from Tibet to the market of Yatung, which had been thrown open to trade with India by the stipulations of the convention of 1810, was permanently blocked by the building of a wall. Letters from the Viceroy protesting this action to the Grand Lama in Lhasa were returned unopened. In order to convince the Tibetans that deeds such as these could only prove harmful in the long run and that it was in Tibet’s interest to sign the treaty at once, a treaty that in my judgement is most generous to Tibet, a special envoy was sent to the Grand Lama with the specific purpose of explaining our present position directly and without ambiguity. The emissary was Sir William Manning, one of the most sober of our diplomats, whose experience began in the Central Provinces and included a distinguished period of service in Kashmir. We had every hope for his success, but except for a brief note sent by Manning himself to the Viceroy announcing his safe arrival in Lhasa, nothing has been heard of him since. A year has now gone by since his arrival, all requests from us have gone unheeded, and the Tibetan government professes no knowledge of him or his mission. Furious with what he considers to be Tibetan duplicity, the Viceroy has now requested permission to send an armed force to take the Tibetan capital and put an end once and for all to Tibetan machinations. His Majesty’s Government, however, is reluctant to do this without one last approach to the Tibetan government. It is the general opinion in London that a war in Tibet is to be avoided at this juncture, if at all possible. Despite our military supremacy in the region, it would be a costly affair, causing severe repercussions amongst the warring tribesmen in Central Asia, all of which we would regard as undesirable. We are well aware of our losses in Afghanistan and do not wish to repeat such unfortunate episodes. An invasion would come only as a last resort. The mission which we propose to you, therefore, Mr. Holmes, would have several goals: to find Manning or learn what has happened to him; to have the treaty signed or, barring that, recommend to us a course of action, including, if you deem it necessary, an invasion of Tibet, for which undesirable eventuality we are prepared; and, finally, of course, to do whatever might be done to neutralise the effects of Yamamoto and Dorjiloff, particularly the latter. Until now, there has been no one whom we could oppose to the dexterity of the Buriat lama Dorjiloff, no one who might bring some sense to the turbulent children of Tibet. We believe that you are amongst the very few who can do these things. Should you agree to the mission, you will have the full force of Government and their resources behind you. I should advise that in all dealings with the Tibetan Government you keep to the specific identity which we have chosen for you and confirmed in the documents: if you accept the mission, you will be known as Hallvard Sigerson, Scandinavian explorer and naturalist, and incidentally secret envoy of the British Government. Your true identity as Sherlock Holmes is to be kept secret and revealed only if necessary to the success of the mission. This, I would presume, would be your wish as well, judging from what little Mycroft Holmes has let us know of your immediate desires.”