The Mandala of Sherlock Holmes - Jamyang Norbu [13]
The lady gave another piercing scream and fainted dead away.
Strickland rushed over, followed by myself, and we lifted the old lady and carried her over to a chaise longue where the terrified looking manager and ladies ministered to her.
'Please keep away from there,' shouted Strickland over the ensuing hubbub. 'I am a police officer, and there is no cause for any alarm.' He motioned to the manager who quickly came over to him. 'Send a messenger to Inspector MacLeod at the Horniman Circle Police Station,' he ordered, jotting down something on a chit which he handed over to the manager.
The manager was plainly shaken. 'It's most terrible business, Sir, such a thing has never ...'
'Snap out of it man!' Strickland cut him off impatiently. 'Send someone to the thana at once.'
Sherlock Holmes was kneeling beside the bloody figure, peering intentiy at the pupil of the man's eye that he had opened by pinching back the eyelid. As Strickland hurried over, Holmes shook his head grimly.
'He's dead as Nebuchadnezzar.' Sherlock Holmes wiped his fingers on his handkerchief. 'Extraordinary amount of bleeding here ... humm ... from just about every part of his body.'
Though a man of culture, and thus naturally averse to blood and violence, I have, due to the exigencies of my profession, seen death in many forms and circumstances. But this prostate figure — its shape and features masked entirely by this horrible covering of blood, looking not human but like a shapeless crimson monster — raised an amorphous terror in my heart. Of course, I did not reveal it.
Mr Holmes seemed more stimulated than shocked by the situation. There was no trace there of the horror which I had felt at this distressing sight, but rather the quiet and interested composure of a holy sadhu, seated cross-legged on his buckskin mat, meditating on the mysteries of life and death.
He wiped the dead man's face quickly with his handkerchief. I noticed no sign of any wound on the skin, but seconds later its features were once again covered with blood.
'Most singular,' was his only comment as he tossed away the blood-soaked handkerchief. He turned to Strickland, 'Could I trouble you to remain here and make sure everybody keeps well away from the body while I take a look around upstairs?'
'Certainly. I'll join you as soon as MacLeod and the boys get here.'
Sherlock Holmes turned to me,'Would you care to accompany me, Mr Mookerjee? There may be questions to be asked and my ignorance of Hindustani will certainly create difficulties in that event.'
'It would be an honour, Sir, if any of my trifling abilities could prove to be of service to you.'
I had imagined that Sherlock Holmes would at once plunge into a study of the mystery, but nothing appeared to be further from his intention. With an air of nonchalance which, under the circumstances, seemed to border upon affectation, he ambled slowly up the staircase. On getting to the landing he gazed vacantly around him at the ceiling, the bloodstained floor and walls (which were like those of a slaughter house). Having concluded his rather perfunctory scrutiny, he loped noiselessly over to the left corridor, following an unmistakable trail of clear red footprints and large splotches of blood.
About five rooms down the corridor the footprints ceased, and only a few drops of blood spotted the carpet. Holmes tested the two doors on either side of this point in the passage, but only the door on the right, the one for Room 289, was open. The key still in the keyhole. Holmes pushed open the door of the room and peered in.
'Humm, it seems empty enough.'
'Are you expecting to find anybody, Sir?'
'Why do you ask?'
'Well, Sir, if the individual of enquiry is contemplating any untoward act of violence, I would not like it to occur as an unexpected incident. My nature is averse to any such shocks.'
'So you think our victim was murdered.'
'What other explanation is there?'
'Dozens. Still it is a cardinal error to theorise without sufficient data. Hulloa! Who's that?'
At the end of the