The Mandala of Sherlock Holmes - Jamyang Norbu [89]
20
To the Trans-Himalayas
A hot, satisfying repast of yak-tail soup and momos awaited us on our return to the Jewel Park. I gratefully tucked in. Food has always been a great solace to me in moments of difficulties and upset nerves, but Sherlock Holmes waved away the steaming dishes. It was one of his peculiarities that in his more intense moments he would permit himself no food — sometimes even starving himself for days during an investigation.1
'At present I cannot spare energy and nerve for digestion,' he said to the Lama Yonten, who seemed to understand and approve of Mr Holmes's abstinence, for he immediately ordered the waiters not to bother him further. Certain Buddhist and Hindu teachings consider the custom of fasting to be a great spur to the intellect. Mr Holmes though, was the first instance I had come across of a European practising this.
Instead he drew a cigarette from his case and, lighting it, related to the anxious Lama our adventures of the evening. The Lama Yonten was, predictably, horrified with the way everything had gone wrong, and how we had only managed to escape from the clutches of the Dark One by the skin of our teeth.
'Merciful Tara. This is terrible. It was unforgivable of me to allow you to put your lives at such risk.'
'You must not upset yourself over it, Reverend Sir,' said Holmes reassuringly. 'When all's said and done, we did manage to come out of it without too much damage.'
'Not quite, Mr Holmes. I just received word from Tsering that two men were wounded by the firing from the Chinese legation —though not mortally so — thanks be to the Buddha. But far more serious is the matter of your exposure to the Dark One, or Moriarty, as you know him. The Amban is bound to lodge a serious complaint to the Regent about unauthorised foreigners in the city.'
'With our locus standi in this country fast becoming a questionable one,' said Holmes, 'it is vital that we act swiftly.'
'The Regent will also lose no time in pressing charges of treason against me,' said the Lama Yonten mournfully. The Lama's melancholia was infectious and even dampened somewhat the tremendous joie de vivre I was experiencing from having survived that terrifying encounter with Moriarty. The Lama's low spirits also reminded me of the original purpose of our mission — and its failure.
'Oh! Dash it all!' I exclaimed, disgusted with myself. 'After all the trepidation and bother, and I did not even think to appropriate the bally scroll before fleeing the scene.'
'Don't be too hard on yourself, old fellow,' said Holmes, 'I nearly forgot too, in all that excitement.'
'You have it!' I cried with joy.
He pulled out the scroll from the pouch of his heavy robe. 'Yes. We have not yet met our Waterloo, Hurree — if I may resume Moriarty's Napoleonic analogy — but this is our Marengo, for it began in defeat and ended in victory.'
He pushed the empty dishes on the table to one side, and, unrolling the scroll carefully, laid it flaton the surface of the table. He then methodically examined it with his magnifying lens.
The painting, on sized cotton, was about one and a half feet by two, but its rich brocade border brought it up to the measurements that Mr Holmes had mentioned earlier. The design of the mandala itself was exactly the same as others of the Kalachakra tantra that I had seen before, though the colours on this one were appreciably deeper, probably due to its great age.
'It has obviously been hung for a very long time,' commented Holmes, without looking up from his lens.
'Well, it has been there on the chapel wall,' said the Lama, 'ever since I can remember. And I entered the service of His Holiness's
former sacred body as a boy.'
'... the design on the brocade,' observed Holmes' 'has become distorted by the stretching of the vertical weave in the material — the cumulative effect of time and gravity. Now let us see what we have on the other side.'
He turned the