The Oriental Casebook of Sherlock Holmes (3 page)

As his rickshaw pulled into the station, however, he felt a face in the crowd staring at him. He soon saw that it was the face of a fakir, someone unfamiliar to him at first, except his eyes had had a familiar implacable look of evil in them. Naked except for a loincloth, the holy man was covered with ashes from head to toe. His hands and feet were bound, and a chain from a neck collar attached his hands to his feet in a tight bunch. He appeared therefore incapable of motion of any kind, except for the shuffling of his feet and the grasping movement of his fingers.

“Or so it seemed, Watson, for suddenly this repulsive creature, by sheer force of will, propelled himself high into the air, landing next to me in the rickshaw. He stared at me hard for a moment, his contorted face almost touching mine, then jumped out with a resounding laugh, and with several incredible jumps, disappeared into the crowd. Most disagreeable it was, Watson, and even more so, since I was certain that I had seen that face among the Ganges swimmers, and possibly before. As I boarded the train, I began the search in my memory for this man, for his look told me that I was no longer alone in India.”

I was by now thoroughly engrossed in Holmes’s adventure. I had myself served in our military forces in Afghanistan many years before and had always hoped to visit the eastern ramparts under our jurisdiction.

“I won’t bore you with details of the city of Calcutta, Watson. Suffice it to say that once one overcomes one’s revulsion at the native squalour and becomes accustomed to the humid pungency of the Bengal climate, Calcutta appears a large teeming metropolis, with most unusual possibilities for crime and evil.”

Once arrived, he threw off his disguise, and again became an Englishman. He created for himself a new personality and occupation. He became Roger Lloyd-Smith, recently arrived from London as a representative of a firm of chemists, Redfern and Russell, Kingsway, Finsbury, London. He took a room in one of the insignificant small hotels off the Chowringhee, and decided to enjoy the delights of this large city.

“I knew of no one there, save Reginald Maxwell—”

“
The
Reginald Maxwell?” I interrupted.

“I see,” said Holmes, “that the case did have a certain notoriety even here in London.”

“It is still a mystery to most of us. His death occurred so prematurely—”

“Yes, Watson, and I shall relate to you how and under what bizarre circumstances.”

Reggie, later of course Sir Reginald, and he, he said, were schoolmates and later attended university together. After university, they grew apart but corresponded occasionally. Reginald wrote at one point that he had entered His Majesty’s Foreign Office, that he had married, and that he probably would be serving for a number of years in distant parts of the Empire, most probably Africa and India. He was, if not one of our most intelligent diplomats, at least a man of charm and industry, and his qualities became rapidly known to Lord Curzon, who, shortly after his appointment as Viceroy, asked him to serve as his personal assistant.

“You may well imagine, Watson, what a step forwards this was in the man’s career: to serve so closely to such a strong and important individual, the representative of the King-Emperor in the Indian Subcontinent.”

Holmes stopped for moment to empty his pipe. The name he had chosen, Roger Lloyd-Smith, was of course no accident, he said. It was the name of a third schoolmate with whom Maxwell and he had been fairly close. They had spent many hours together at snooker. It was under this name that he thought he would write a short note, knowing that Maxwell would be equally happy to see Roger, who, if Holmes’s information was still correct, was living happily outside London, working for Redfern and Russell, blissfully unaware that he was about to visit Lord Curzon’s assistant.

“I therefore wrote Reginald, explaining to him that I was passing through Calcutta on my way to the Levant on business and that I hoped we might meet, if only briefly. He would of course recognise me instantly, but my true identity would be preserved until we were face-to-face. The following morning I received a reply to my note:

Dear Roger,

So happy you are here. Come to my office at four tomorrow. I shall send a cab. It will be so good to see you.

Reggie

It was a most welcome relief to Holmes not to have to travel by rickshaw from the hotel. Reginald’s office was in a wing of Government headquarters, a little distant from the Viceroy’s own offices. He had only a moment’s wait after his arrival before he was led to his old friend. The peon left, and as Holmes greeted him. Reggie gasped and turned pale.

“Good lord! I don’t believe it. Holmes! My dear chap, is it you? I thought you were dead!”

“A double surprise, eh?” said Holmes.

“Excuse me, Holmes, I am so taken aback by your presence that you will forgive me if I sit down. I was of course expecting Smith, a surprise in itself, but to see you, Holmes—and here, of all places.”

Holmes explained to him in brief what had transpired over the last several years and his reasons for wishing to preserve the impression that he was no longer alive, and his desire to spend a few days among his countrymen after long isolation in Tibet, the Himalayas, and India itself.

“Of course, I understand perfectly, Holmes. I shall open every facility here for you, including the Gymkhana. It might be easier for me if I let my wife in on your secret. And with your permission, the Viceroy himself. I am sure that he would be most happy to meet with you and to learn your impressions of Central Asia. The Great Game, as they call it, is still afoot.”

Holmes replied that he would be happy to meet with the Viceroy if he so wished, and that he had no objection to revealing his identity in these two instances, provided that he was referred to publically at all times by the name he had given. Reginald agreed to use the utmost caution in his regard and would arrange for every social convenience for Roger Lloyd-Smith during his stay in Calcutta.

The two old friends then reminisced about their university days. As they talked, Holmes examined Sir Reginald closely. He had changed somewhat from the Reggie that he had known, as would be natural considering the number of years that had intervened. A bit stouter perhaps, and grey had begun to appear in his still full head of hair. As they talked, however, Holmes became aware that his grace and good humour disguised some inner turmoil. When he stopped talking, his smile would drop from his face like a mask, leaving in its place an expression of deepest conflict.

“I must meet with the Viceroy in a few minutes, my dear Holmes,” he said. “As you may have heard, His Majesty King Edward will arrive in Calcutta shortly for an extended visit and darbar. His ship has been reported in the Bay of Bengal just north of Ceylon. He should arrive therefore in a few days. We have much to do in the meantime. However, would you dine with us tomorrow evening, about eight? Here is my address.”

He handed Holmes a card with an address in the Alipore district of the city.

“My wife,” he said, “has heard much about you from me through the years and will want to meet you. She will be leaving the day after tomorrow for England.”

“Indeed, I should like to meet her as well,” said Holmes. “Will she be gone for long?”

It was at this point that the look of pain that Holmes had only glimpsed before covered his face. His voice cracked as he said: “I am afraid that she will not be returning.”

Holmes nodded vaguely and asked no more questions, but it was apparent to him that Sir Reginald’s pain lay in his personal and domestic life rather than in his work, which had all the outward appearance of complete success.

Holmes took his leave, and was escorted out by the same peon who had led him in. He returned to the hotel, pleased at the prospect of being once again among his countrymen, but also uneasy about his friend’s obvious discomfort.

“I should tell you, Watson, that this was the last time I was to see Sir Reginald alive.”

By now Holmes had refilled his pipe, reached for the brandy, and poured us two full measures.

“Pray, continue, Holmes. I gather that the case is about to take a most singular turn.”

“Singular, Watson, yes,” he said, “and most tragic. My first intimation that something was unusual came the following morning.” He had risen early and at breakfast was handed a note that read:

Dear Roger,

Something has transpired with regard to the important Visitor whom I mentioned to you, and so I must cancel, regretfully, our dinner invitation this evening. I hope this is not a great inconvenience for you. I shall be in touch again shortly.

(signed) Reggie

The note was written in haste and Holmes could see that the hand and mind that had composed it were intensely agitated. He could do nothing, however. He spent the day visiting the usual monuments, including the house of Job Charnock, the founder of the city. He dined alone at the hotel, and then, rather than retire, took a long walk through the small lanes and back alleys of the city.

“It is a city that benefits greatly from darkness, Watson. As the black of night succeeds the dusk, the city takes on an aura of magic and mystery that I have seen in few places. Women in silken saris, turbaned gentlemen, carried by the omnipresent rickshawallah, seem to float in the air. The smoke of the cooking fires is intense, the odours unusual with the spices of the East. As the evening moves on to night, a peaceful hush comes over the city broken only by the occasional footfall of someone hurrying home.”

In the intense darkness, he eventually found his way back to the hotel. It was about eleven when he entered his room. It was but a moment later that there was a knock. He had a visitor. He opened the door and saw there a woman dressed in black, her face veiled. She entered quickly, closing the door behind her. In the dim light, he could make out nothing except that she was tall and graceful.

“Please sit down, Lady Maxwell,” he said.

The woman appeared startled by his addressing her by name. As she sat down, she lifted her veil and said, “You are indeed most clever, Mr. Holmes. How did you know who I am?”

“A guess, my lady, but obviously a good one. Only Sir Reginald, you, and the Viceroy know of my presence. I doubt if an English business man such as Roger Lloyd-Smith would be receiving callers alone at night on his second day in the city, particularly from a woman. It would be far more likely for such a visitor to come to Sherlock Holmes. Hence my well-founded guess.”

Holmes confessed to me that not since the affair of Bohemia many years before had he met a member of the female sex of such beauty and attraction as Lady Maxwell. She had that rare beauty found in some Englishwomen that joins the best features of our race with the grace of the highest breeding. As he studied her, he almost lamented the early decision that had taken from him the possibility of a peaceful life of domesticity with a woman such as this and led him to a lonely life fighting against the malignant evils of our times. He had little time to ponder such things, however, for her state was one of great distress.

“What brings you here, my lady, in the dark night of Calcutta with all the attendant dangers and possibility of discovery?”

“Most assuredly, Mr. Holmes, I should not be here unless it were a matter of the greatest urgency. I am about to depart for England, but I am so unhappy about Reginald that I thought I might explain to you what has happened in our lives that has forced me to leave. I am perhaps not without guilt in what I am about to tell you, but I hope that you will listen with sympathy and, I trust, with the thought of helping your old friend through what I believe will be a most difficult period. Naturally, what I tell you must be held in the strictest confidence.”

“You may speak freely, Madam, and I shall do what I can.”

As she spoke, her dignity seemed to grow with her beauty, and Holmes could only be impressed with the honesty of the motives that had caused her to come on such a difficult errand.

“Let me start at the beginning then,” said she.

She was born in Yorkshire, in the small village of Wyck Rissington. Her name before her marriage to Reginald was Jennifer Hume. Her father, Jeremy Hume, had moved early in his life from Scotland to England, where he met and married her mother. He was a successful barrister, and she was raised with her younger sister in comfort and peace in the English countryside. Their life had all the outward trappings of familial happiness and was for the most part uneventful.

“My father loved us,” she said, “but was morose and rather strict at times, our mother understanding and patient. When I reached sixteen, my parents began to talk vaguely of my eventual marriage to the right person, but I made it clear to them that I would choose my husband myself, if I were to have one at all. My father, interested only in a good social arrangement that would be a match for his financial success, made it evident that he would certainly have a major say in my marriage. There were a few scenes, as I am sure occur in many households, and there matters rested, for I was far too young for immediate worry.”

A year later, however, she met a young man who took her heart. His name was James Hamilton. He lived with his mother in the next village. He had no known father, and his mother took in laundry and did other menial jobs to support herself. There had been rude jokes also, passed back and forth in conversation, about old Rose Hamilton, but they were beyond her comprehension. She had never met her son before, who was judged to be one of the handsomest lads in the region.

“One morning, I had gone to the fields not far from our house to pick wildflowers. I was standing near the road among the flowers when I became aware that someone was watching me. I turned and for the first time saw James and fell in love. He was tall, of slender build, with a beautiful open face, but what stole my heart, Mr. Holmes, was his smile and the clear earnest look in his eyes. We talked embarassedly that day for a few minutes, as young people will do. He asked me if he could help me pick and I said yes. He then accompanied me to the gate of our house and politely bade me good-bye. That evening I could not eat at supper, nor could I sleep for thinking of him and going over in my mind everything that we had said to each other that day.”