The Collected Adventures of Sherlock Holmes in Japan (2 page)

‘I’m sorry?’ said the senior monk tightly.

‘Beside Isuke’s
futon
there was a small brass bowl, with some ash within it,’ returned Holmes. ‘Clearly, he’d burnt a stick of incense sometime the previous evening.’

The priest now emerged from his sorrow to stare quizzically at Holmes.

‘Holmes-
san
, please excuse me, but… does this have any bearing on anything?’ asked the priest.

‘Quite possibly not,’ admitted Holmes. ‘I thought it worth mentioning, but now…’

The awkward atmosphere within the room was interrupted by the arrival of the same young monk who’d served us lunch. He first knocked on the door, and when the priest bade him ‘Come’ slid open the door before respectfully entering on his knees. He shuffled over to the priest, whispering a few words in the elderly man’s ear.

The
Jushoku
again appeared pained. He waved the young monk away, and then said to Holmes and me –

‘And now what I feared would happen, has. One of the monks here has stated his desire to leave this temple. Holmes-
san
and Yoshida-
sensei
,’ (my status as a doctor led to this honorific being added to my own surname) ‘you must excuse me and Katamari – we have to attend to this matter immediately, before every single monk here decides to flee. And, of course, I must also arrange for poor Isuke to receive a proper funeral.’

‘Of course – but I must quickly ask one final thing,’ said Holmes.

‘Yes?’ said the priest, rising slowly to his feet.

‘You wish for me to try and investigate this matter – to try and discover exactly
why
two young, apparently healthy monks have died in such a relatively short space of time, and in such mysterious… circumstances?’

The priest’s expression became almost pleading. He appeared now to have forgotten all about Holmes’s strange (indeed, apparently quite pointless) question, concerning the burning of the incense.

‘Holmes-
san
, I would be most grateful for any help or explanation you could give,’ said the priest.    

‘Of course,’ returned Holmes. ‘Only, I fear to impose, but it would be helpful if my friend Yoshida-
sensei
and I could stay here, while I look into this matter…’

‘Naturally,’ said the priest, as Katamari’s cold eyes signaled his disapproval of such an arrangement. ‘I will have one of the monks arrange a room for you. Now, if you’ll excuse me…’

Accompanied by Katamari, he left.

At once, Holmes stood up, his eyes gleaming.

‘Quickly, Yoshida-
sensei
, I beg of you…! Let us return to the inn, pay our bill and get our few possessions! Although, we cannot truly start work before everyone at this temple has fallen asleep this evening…’

‘Holmes-
san
?’ I said uncertainly. ‘What ‘work’ is this?’

‘You will know,’ returned the Englishman, his voice and expression suddenly grim. ‘I believe that there is great danger here – murder and trickery and deception. We have to act quickly…’

Like his good friend and colleague Doctor John Watson in London, England, I knew when it was appropriate to ask Holmes questions – and when it was best just to do exactly as he wanted. So without another word we left the
tatami
dining room, and walked along the wooden corridor towards the main entrance of the temple.

3

The room given to Holmes and I was as small and plain as that which the dead monk had occupied. Only a few
tatami
in size, with two
futon
laid out almost side-by-side.

‘No incense sticks provided – note that, Yoshida-
sensei
,’ muttered Holmes, as (now that we were alone) he began to spread out those assorted, peculiar tools he always carried upon one of the
futon
.

I barely restrained a sigh. He was still obsessed by this matter of the incense sticks! I failed to see what possible relevance this could have to anything, least of all the death of the monk named Isuke.

The temple went to sleep soon after it got dark. I judged that they did this in order to preserve the expensive oil for their lamps. We’d been given one such lamp, which shone softly in our small room now, as we waited until it seemed likely that everyone else in the temple was fast asleep.

And then we’d do – what, exactly? I’d still no idea.

I watched as Holmes carefully ordered all those small, variously-sized blades and tools he’d had call to use in the past. When it was necessary to pick a lock, or something of the sort. At this, like so many things, he was expert.

Then Holmes put these small tools back in the pouch he used to carry them. He sat down on a
futon
and looked at me, the deep eyes in that noble, yet curiously hawk-like face again like pinpricks.

‘I have something. When you look at it, it’s there. But when you look for it, it’s not. What is it?’

‘Holmes-
san
…?’ I returned hesitantly.

‘An easy enough riddle,’ yawned Holmes – something which broke his almost hypnotic expression of before. ‘And something which relates to those words of Gyoja’s, printed on the scroll in the temple’s dining-area, which have had assorted monks and priests scratching their heads in confusion for several hundred years.’

‘You – you know what those words
mean
?’ I demanded.

Holmes held up a cautionary hand.

‘We shall see, we shall see,’ he said. ‘In fact, I believe we can set off now.’

‘But where are we going?’

‘To that mirror in the main entrance that you so admired upon our arrival earlier. Quietly now! We mustn’t disturb a soul...’

4

The meager flame of the oil lamp flickered ghostlike in the glass of the great mirror. I was holding this lamp – but then Holmes took it from me, using it to perform a curious, close-up search of the mirror’s frame.

I have already said that this frame was impressively styled. A great number of small, metallic fish, each joined by tail and mouth to two others. I wondered briefly as to what (if anything) this design symbolized; and then my thoughts were distracted as Holmes made a low noise in his throat, as though something he’d suspected had just been confirmed. But looking at the area of the frame he himself was examining, I could see nothing.

He’d brought the small bag of tools with him. Now he selected one thin, long instrument, and set to work loosening one of the metal bolts securing the mirror to the wooden wall!

This bolt with the slotted head, and then another, seemed to turn easily enough, given how long they’d surely been stuck in this wall. But Holmes – while tall and rather on the thin side – also had exceptional strength in his body. Doubtless, his powerful fingers holding the bladed instrument had a great part to play in just how easily those bolts appeared to turn.

‘Hold the mirror by its left side and bottom corner, if you please, Yoshida-
sensei
,’ requested Holmes. I hastened to obey. Obviously, he intended to remove this mirror completely from the wall.

‘Careful now… It will be heavy…’ Holmes cautioned, as supporting the corner of the mirror on his side with one hand, he used the other to remove the final bolt. We both gave a slight grunt as we took the weight of the mirror, and at Holmes’s instruction carried it over to one side of the wall, before setting it down as carefully as possible onto the floor.

Then Holmes picked up the lamp and shone it onto the area of the wall that had been behind the mirror. I gave a gasp of surprise. There was a cavity – a square-shaped recess in the wooden wall! It was approximately at chest-height, maybe twelve inches square… Holmes held the lamp closer to it and I saw that it was approximately the same measurement deep. It contained something: a thick length of bamboo, brown with age, stoppered both ends with a sort of wooden plug.

This piece of bamboo was, however, almost completely covered by thick cobwebs. As though it had been lying here, hidden behind this great mirror, from the time the temple itself had been built.

‘Holmes…’ I breathed, scarcely believing what I was seeing. What was this great mystery – how had Holmes realized about this hidden cavity and what it contained? And exactly what
was
inside this sealed piece of bamboo?  

Holmes reached in with one thin hand, and brushing aside the cobwebs pulled out the piece of bamboo. His fingers tugged at one of the wooden plugs for a few moments; it came free with an effort and then my heart leapt slightly as Holmes produced a rolled sheet of ancient-looking brown paper.

It crackled slightly as he oh-so-cautiously unrolled it…

‘Careful, now – careful!’ he said in a fierce whisper, as in my excitement I held the lamp just a little too close to this piece of paper. Again, it took me a few moments to decipher some of the thickly-inked Chinese characters written; but this is what I read –

I am life

Beauty

And sometimes death

I destroy villages

And can defeat

Mountains

No man

May pass through me

Untouched

And yet

You must pass

Through me

Untouched

‘Another riddle!’ I said then. ‘I cannot understand it.’

‘We will put this mirror back,’ returned Holmes softly. ‘And then we will return to our room. I have much to think about.’

It took scarcely five minutes to return the mirror to its original position. Only before Holmes put the bolts back in place, he first returned the sheet of paper, in the stoppered length of bamboo, inside that cavity!

‘Holmes…?’ I couldn’t help but mutter.

‘We will leave things as we found them, Yoshida-
sensei
,’ said Holmes shortly. ‘Trust me.’

With the oil of the lamp beginning to run low, we finished quickly and made our way silently along several long corridors to our room. Inside, we made ready for bed and lay down. Holmes blew out the lamp. Only then did he consent to speak.

‘We are playing a most dangerous game, my dear friend,’ he declared, his voice sounding distant and thoughtful in the dark. ‘We were meant to discover just what exists behind that large, ornate mirror. That is why – I will tell you now – someone stuck a tiny piece of thread onto one part of the frame and also the wall, so that they could tell later if the mirror had been moved.

‘Note also the somewhat ‘excessive’ amount of cobwebs covering the piece of bamboo – taken from somewhere else and placed there by someone, in a deliberate but rather clumsy attempt to make us believe that we were the first to discover that hiding place behind the mirror.’

‘But who –
why
?’ I blurted.

Holmes sighed. ‘As for ‘who’ – that, at the moment, I do not know for certain. I have my suspicions, however… But despite what I said earlier, concerning what is written on the hanging scroll in the temple’s dining area, I now know I am not actually the first person to determine the
true
meaning of those words.’     

‘But what
is
the true meaning of the words, Holmes-
san
?’ I asked, completely bewildered by all I was being told. It was only serving to make things more complicated, not easier. 

Holmes chuckled softly.

‘Earlier I said to you – ‘I have something. When you look at it, it’s there. But when you look for it, it’s not. What is it?’

‘This refers, of course, to a person’s reflection.’

I considered this for a moment.

‘Well, yes, I can see that now,’ I said. ‘But how does this relate to the words on that scroll, and also to the matter of the mirror?’

‘The mistake made these past several hundred years, by many a Japanese priest and monk, had been to assume that Gyoja’s words related to some inner state of Nirvana, or Enlightenment, being attained – if only one could realize the
true
meaning of his words. In accordance with the Buddhist belief that this world we inhabit is nothing other than a shabby illusion, and so on.

‘In any case, I and at least one other person have, to date, realized that the scroll has written upon it what is nothing other than a glorified riddle. And not a particularly skillful one, at that. ‘To exist in this place / And yet simultaneously / To be in another’ – such a thing can only occur, surely, when you see yourself reflected in a mirror? And what mirror, here in this temple, other than that impressive work of Chinese art mounted in the main entrance?’

Although Holmes could hardly see me, I nodded. His reasoning had been proved correct, after all.