Mandala of Sherlock Holmes (7 page)

‘No wonder the poor chap bled as extensively as he did,’ I said, in dread awe.

‘That is not all,’ said Holmes grimly, checking the notes on his cuff. ‘Two other complex chemical substances are present in the Giant Leech’s saliva. One activates the allergy reaction system in the body tissues to produce
histamine,
an
amine
concentrate formed from
histidine,
which dilates blood vessels and the pores of the skin. The third substance causes massive
Paroxysmal tachycardia,
a condition in which the heart suddenly commences to beat at an extraordinarily rapid rate — from two hundred and fifty to three hundred beats a minute — for a considerable period of time. So, once the saliva was absorbed into the blood-stream you would have a cumulative situation where a tremendously agitated heart would violently pump all the enervated blood from the body out of every dilated pore in the skin.’

‘My God,’ said Strickland with a shudder. ‘But how did the creature get to him in the first place?’

‘It dropped on the back of his neck when he bent over to straighten out the bedclothes.’

‘That explains the marks on his neck,’ exclaimed Strickland.

‘Yes. The leech has three jaws, set with sharp teeth, that make the typical Y-shaped incision that I sketched for you a little while ago. The jaws and suckers on the mouth grip theflesh tenaciously. It is possible that the victim managed to tear the leech off his neck only after he rushed out into the corridor in panic. That is where the blood stains start. He then probably flung the horrible thing on the ground and stamped it to death. Huree, you may remember it as the “piece of India rubber” that I discovered yesterday in the corridor. But of course the leech had already injected its deadly saliva into the man, and from then on there was nothing any one could have done to prevent his heart from pumping his life blood out of his body. There was so much anti-coagulant in the blood that even after spilling on the floor and being exposed to the air for more than an hour, it showed no sign of drying.’

‘You chanced to remark on it yesterday when we were coming down to the lobby after your investigations, Mr Holmes/ I exclaimed, remembering.

But Sherlock Holmes was already occupied in climbing onto the table he had pushed by the bed. He reached for the lamp, and, holding it delicately with a handkerchief, unfastened it from the chains that suspended it from the ceiling. He then jumped lightiy off the table and placed the elephant on it.

‘Humm. Ingenious. A unique and terrible weapon,’ said he, examining the elephant closely. ‘And yet such an exquisite work of art. Notice how the heat of the lamp inside the canopied box …’

‘The howdah, Sir,’ I corrected him.

‘Thank you,’ he replied brusquely,’… how the heat of the lamp inside the howdah is transferred to the belly of the elephant by these copper wires. The heat gradually melts the wax that holds this small hatch in the elephant’s belly and then, after a period of time regulated by the thickness of the wax used, allows the hatch to fall open and lets the creature out. I experimented on the hatch last night and discovered that it would not be possible for it to remain closed — once the lamp had been lit — for longer than two hours. So I was reasonably sure that no one would prepare the devilish thing again before the evening. Just to be on the safe side though, I asked you, Strickland, to be in my room before sunset. When I met Mr Carvallo in the lobby I informed him that I would be retiring after an early supper. So our friend was able to time his move nicely, while I had a light repast and thereafter borrowed a full salt-cellar.’

‘But what went wrong yesterday, Mr Holmes?’ I asked.

‘Our nervous friend here …’ Holmes turned to the clerk, who was cowering in the corner of the room,’… used too much heat to stick the wax on the hatch yesterday, thereby causing a portion of it to drip on the counterpane. This thinned the seal and caused the premature opening of the hatch. But I apportion too much blame to you, Mr Carvallo. It was, after all, a most desperate commission, and remarkable that such a faint-hearted person as yourself should have attempted to undertake it. It would tax the limits of any man’s courage to handle such a creature once — but twice! That was above and beyond the call of duty. Or was it because your master does not tolerate failure? A hard man, is he not? It would be difficult to imagine someone more unforgiving than the villain whom you have the misfortune to serve. What kind of hold does he have on you?’

‘I cannot tell.’ The wretch sank his face in his hands. ‘It is too late,’ he sobbed. After a while he raised his head and with great effort attempted to get a hold of himself. Taking a deep breath he spoke, a note of hopeless defiance heightening the pathos in his voice. ‘No, gentlemen, I cannot tell. Whatever fate the law may impose on me, it will be a kinder one than what I will surely suffer if I betray my master.’

‘Oh, you think so, do you?’ said Strickland harshly, snapping a pair of handcuffs on him. ‘Let me tell you, my man, that if I have anything to say about it you’ll hang from the highest gallows in the Bombay Presidency.’ He turned to me. ‘Kindly ring the bell, Huree.’

A littie while later Inspector MacLeod and two constables came in. Strickland gave them a number of instructions, after which they left with the wretched prisoner.

‘The power of fear,’ said Holmes gravely, settling himself in an armchair. ‘I should not have underestimated it. Observe how even such a piteous wretch as our Portuguese clerk could steel himself to defy us, when the fear of Moriarty’s retribution cast its dark shadow over his heart.’

‘But he is dead,’ I argued. ‘You said …’

‘The man is dead,’ corrected Holmes, ‘his work lives. The Professor may lie at the bottom of the Reichenbach Falls but his charming society still has the power to reward, and, what is more relevant to our case, to punish those who betray it. Here in India, over a vast criminal empire, rules a bosom friend of Moriarty. That is the man who has inherited his dark mantie. That is the man who is after me now.’

‘Give me his name, Mr Holmes,’ said Strickland, ‘and I’ll soon have him sweating behind steel bars.’

‘I commend your energy, Strickland. But I fear that such a direct course of action would prove futile. Colonel Sebastian Moran is a most cunning and dangerous adversary. At the moment the only net we have is too frail to hold such a formidable prey.’

‘But, dash it all!’ cried Strickland. ‘The man is an honourable soldier.’

Holmes threw up his hands in resignation. ‘Our net is indeed weak when a representative of the law fails to recognise his foremost adversary.’

‘You astonish me, Mr Holmes,’ Strickland remonstrated. ‘You expect me to believe that an English gendeman, a former member of Her Majesty’s Indian Army, the best heavy-game shot in India, a man with a still unrivalled bag of tigers, is a dangerous criminal. Why, I was with him just two nights ago at the Old Shikari Club. We played a rubber of whist together.’

‘Well,’ shrugged Sherlock Holmes,‘I suppose you cannot really be expected to have seen through the fellow’s masquerade. After all, a couple of months ago Scotland Yard didn’t even know of the existence of Professor James Moriarty. But believe me when I tell you that after the Professor, our Colonel Moran is probably the most dangerous criminal alive.’

He reached into the inside pocket of his coat and pulled out a slim morocco-bound notebook. ‘Humm. Let’s see what we have here on him. Just a few items I’ve copied out from my index of biographies. Ah! Here it is.’

He handed over a. card tcr Strickland. I rose, and, standing behind Strickland, studied it over his shoulder:

Moran, Sebastian, Colonel.
Unemployed. Formerly 1st Bangalore Pioneers. Born London, 1840. Son of Sir Augustus Moran, C.B., once British Minister to Persia. Educated Eton and Oxford. Served in Jowaki Campaign, Afghan Campaign, Charasiab (despatches), Sherpur, Cabul. Author of
Heavy Games of the Western Himalayas
(1881);
Three Months in the Jungle
(1884). London Address: Conduit Street. Clubs: The Anglo-Indian, The Tankerville, The Bagatelle Card Club. Address in India: Auckland Villa, Lahore Cantonment, Clubs: The Punjab (Lahore), The Old Shikari (Bombay), The Black Hearts (Simla).

‘But Mr Holmes,’ I objected, ‘the gendeman’s career is that of an honourable soldier.’

‘It is true,’ Holmes answered. ‘Up to a certain point he did well. He was always a man of iron nerve, and no doubt you, Strickland, have heard the story of how he crawled down a drain after a wounded man-eating tiger. There are some trees, Huree, which grow to a certain height, and then suddenly develop flaws. You will see it often in humans. I have a theory that the individual represents in his development the whole procession of his ancestors, and that such a sudden turn to good or evil stands for some strong influence which came into the line of his pedigree. The person becomes, as it were, the epitome of the history of his own family.’

‘That is surely rather fanciful,’ Strickland reproached.

‘Well, I don’t insist upon it. Whatever the cause, Colonel Moran began to go wrong. Surely, Strickland, that if the Hyderabad card scandal did nothing to sully the good Colonel’s reputation, then the mysterious death of his native butler must have at least given the police force some doubt as to his continence.’

‘Mr Holmes, we are aware of certain blemishes on Colonel Moran’s record, but it takes more than some suspicious occurrences to charge a man with being the leader of a dangerous criminal gang.’

‘No doubt you are right,’ said Holmes testily. He took a cigar from a box on the table and lit it. He then leaned back on his armchair, and, gazing at the ceiling, began to blow great clouds of smoke into the air. ‘Well, it is a very long shot, but I must play it if my poor littie reputation, such as it is, is not to suffer shipwreck. Now Strickland, since you happen to play cards with Moran, you will surely have noticed a peculiarity in his right thumb.’

‘He has a long, heavy scar running diagonally across his thumb. The result of some accident with a hunting knife.’

‘Actually he received the injury in a struggle with a knife-wielding woman whom he had foully betrayed and ruined. But that does not concern us at present. Now, Huree, if you could kindly spare me a lead pencil from that fine array of writing paraphernalia you have displayed in your breast pocket, I will attempt to provide a demonstration of my claim that Colonel Sebastian Moran was the real perpetrator of this dreadful crime.’

Mr Holmes took a penknife out of his pocket and began to sharpen my pencil. He shaved off the wood and exposed more than a couple of inches of the soft lead, which he then delicately scraped with the knife over a clean sheet of paper. After about ten minutes he had a small pile of very fine black powder. Then going over to the elephant, he began to examine it minutely with the aid of his lens. The elephant glittered as Mr Holmes turned it this way and that, inspecting it under the gas; but I noticed that he was careful not to handle it except with a handkerchief.

‘Mr Carvallo. Mr Carvallo,’ he muttered to himself,‘you should not have fondled this thing so much with your sweaty hands.’

After a good twenty minutes, during which his brow seemed to furrow deeply with mounting frustration and annoyance, he sprang up from his chair with a cry of satisfaction. ‘Ha! Ha! Capital. Now if I could trouble you gentlemen to come closer, I may be able to amuse you with this parlour-trick.’

As we gathered around him Sherlock Holmes picked up the sheet of paper and gently blew some of the fine graphite powder onto the surface of the elephant, on its left flank. He then tapped the elephant lightiy with the penknife, till all the excess graphite powder fell off on the table. As if by magic a number of finger and thumb prints appeared on the part of the elephant which had received the powder. The black lines and whorls of the impression stood out clearly against the light yellow of the brass lamp.

‘Now,’ said Holmes,‘most of these belong to the sweaty fingers of our Portuguese friend, but if you will observe here closely …’

Using the tip of the penknife as a pointer he indicated a large clear impression — a rough ridged thumb print with a diagonal line running across it.

‘It is not conclusive evidence; said Sherlock Holmes, folding the penknife and putting it back in his pocket, ‘but it may serve to demonstrate that Colonel Sebastian Moran did, at sometime, handle this object.’

‘This is most wonderful verification, Sir;
quod erat demonstrandum,
if I may be pardoned the expression,’ I exclaimed in admiration.

‘I owe you an apology, Mr Holmes,’ said Strickland ruefully. ‘I should have had more faith in your marvellous faculty.’

‘You give me too much credit, Strickland. I must admit to some luck in this instance. On the balance of probability, I could not have hoped for such a perfect sample of the Colonel’s thumb print, especially as the clerk had managed to obliterate nearly all previous fingerprints left on it by his injudicious handling of the object. But I took my chance for
“a vaincre sans peril, on triomphe sans gloire”.
Corneille has such a very neat way of putting these things. But for incontrovertible proof you would need a sample of Colonel Moran’s thumb print to compare with this one on the elephant. As you may know, no two human fingerprints are ever alike.’

‘Yes, Mr Holmes,’ answered Strickland, ‘I have heard something of the kind; though till this day I was not aware that it could be used to practical advantage, especially in the solution of a crime.’

‘A wide range of exact knowledge is essential to the higher development of the art of detection,’ Sherlock Holmes explained in a didactic manner. ‘The Babylonians pressed fingerprints into clay to identify the author of cuneiform writings, and to protect against forgeries. Fingerprints were also used by the Chinese at an early date for purposes of identification. You may not be aware that I am the author of a trifling monograph upon the subject. In my work entitled
Upon the Distinction and Classification of Human Finger and Thumb Prints
I enumerate five main groups of characteristic details and other sub-classification by which fingerprints maybe systematically classified and recorded. I devote two whole chapters to the methods by which fingerprints may be detected upon objects such as glass, metal, wood, and even paper. I myself have developed a method, which you have seen crudely demonstrated, by which near invisible fingerprints can be enhanced or developed by the delicate application of fine powders whose colours contrast favourably with the background surface. The powders adhere to the lines of the prints because of the body oils and sweat always present on the surface of the human hand and which is invariably left on any surface we touch. Such developed fingerprints could be photographed to provide, let us say, evidence in court.