The Collected Adventures of Sherlock Holmes in Japan (5 page)

‘Isuke went… well, practically mad trying to work out what the words meant,’ continued Holmes, his voice again sounding somehow far-away. ‘The scroll in the dining-room – yes, that pointed to something tangible. We already know someone had realized it related to the mirror; and moreover, that this ‘someone’ had removed the mirror from the wall and thus found the riddle relating to water.’

‘You think this was Isuke, Holmes-
san
?’ I enquired.

‘That is to ignore the death of the first monk, Matsuo,’ declared the Englishman – something that made me catch my breath and almost sit up. Had Holmes realized some sort of
correlation
, as it were, between these hidden scrolls and the mysterious deaths of the monks?

‘But we will set aside this matter for the moment,’ resumed Holmes. ‘Enough to say, at the present time, that the young monk named Isuke was fully aware of the scroll secreted behind the mirror – that he’d read (or at least was somehow aware) what was written on it, and realized that it related to water.

‘But here he came unstuck. Did this riddle, he found himself wondering, relate to something tangible – something that had been hidden somewhere, as was the case with the first scroll? Or did he now have to contemplate, and furthermore
understand
, one of these bizarre Buddhist
koan
?’

‘A
koan
?’ I queried.

‘A
koan
,’ repeated Holmes. ‘As an educated Japanese male, you surely know what I am talking about, my dear Yoshida-
sensei
! One of those strange, Zen-like riddles teachers like to direct at their teachers. ‘What noise is made when one hand claps?’ and the like. They have no definite answer; they are intended more to challenge a student’s thoughts and progress.’

‘Yes, I am of course aware of what a
koan
is,’ I said simply.

‘Anyway,’ went on Holmes. ‘Soon beginning to doubt that this riddle pertaining to water even had a tangible answer, Isuke – by now driven half-insane through ceaselessly turning the riddle over and over in his mind – took to walking in the rain, hoping that by doing so he might obtain some flash of insight concerning how one could ‘pass through’ water – ‘untouched’.

‘And then,’ finished Holmes softly, ‘he was silenced – murdered.’

‘Silenced – why? And murdered how – and by who?’ I blurted, my thoughts racing from all I was hearing, so that I thought I might also be driven mad. It seemed absurd; yet at its simplest level, I thought I understood what Holmes was saying.

‘That, again, is something upon which I need to think further. I have also to realize what this last riddle refers to – and when I do, and speak of it, then we will both be in the gravest danger. We will have to work fast, and be on our utmost guard.’

Incredible, after all Holmes had said, that he could then just bid me a simple goodnight. I knew he was lying there, eyes open and thoughts turning; but he said nothing more.

He had to realize one more riddle – just this last one…

8

The
Jushoku
was absent from the service in the temple hall the following morning. I supposed he was still resting from this latest bout of ill-health caused by the mysterious deaths of two monks – and the desire these deaths had created in those other monks to flee this temple. I could hardly blame them. The priest had spoken of a ‘curse’ – well, that seemed as valid an explanation as any other right now.

The only person who had a chance of discovering what had
really
caused those two young, and seemingly healthy monks to die was extremely quiet all that morning. By now, I knew when Holmes was deep in thought and so I tried to disturb him as little as was possible.

Katamari looked at him curiously once or twice during the morning service, but he did not speak to us – far less make any mention of what had taken place the previous evening. He was waiting, I understood, for the famous English detective to inform
him
of what this latest riddle pertained to. For while the
Jushoku
was sick in bed (I had again offered my services, but apparently these were not needed), Katamari was in charge of this main temple of the Golden Path.  

But
would
Holmes – a
gaijin
, after all! – be able to solve this riddle, set by Gyoja several hundred years before? There was a key – so clearly the successful interpreting of the riddle would lead to a locked door of some kind. Somewhere in the temple? Or someplace hidden outside?

I thought back on the riddle, for I’d memorized the words, but it seemed entirely bereft of meaning. What had been written on the first two scrolls was almost simple in comparison. And I knew that Holmes had still not guessed its meaning – far from it. I could almost sense the frustration welling up inside of him as he turned those words over and over in his mind, although his expression remained customarily impassive.

The day passed slowly, what with Holmes saying next to nothing and there being no one else to talk to. I even attended the afternoon service, as though seeking a little light relief. Finally there was dinner, and then we returned to our room to rest.

Which was when, quite unexpectedly, Holmes said suddenly to me –

‘There is something on your mind, my good doctor.’

It was a statement, not a question.

‘It doesn’t matter at the present time,’ I returned quietly. ‘It’s not important.’

‘What is it?’ asked Holmes.

I shrugged, thought for a few moments, and then said –

‘I never knew you’d travelled to China, before coming to Japan.’

Holmes gave a small smile of reminiscence, which monetarily displaced some of the mental exhaustion now beginning to show on his face. 

‘I was rather ‘out of sorts’, to provide a somewhat clumsy interpretation of a common English expression,’ he said softly. ‘My nerves were quite strained by a succession of cases in England, especially those concerning my late nemesis, Moriarty.

‘In order to recuperate, I thought that I might practice what almost amounted to an ascetic lifestyle. And so I travelled to China, where I commenced a little Buddhist training in meditation and the like in one of the temples in Chang’an.

‘But then I discovered the sprawling backstreets of the city, the lamp-lit pleasure areas, those countless jumbled, cramped dwellings and hidden rooms and the type of life that takes place in shadows and darkness… Far more interesting than what I was enduring at the temple, I regret to say…’

It was not cold, but still Holmes’s words somehow had me chilled to the bone.

‘Yes,’ he continued, his eyes far-away and abstract, looking into his memories. ‘Despite my being a foreigner – and anti-foreign sentiment is high within China, and I believe it will only get worse – I was able to learn many dark secrets…

‘Ways of assassination, especially, which right now I be– ’

A soft knock on the door caused Sherlock Holmes to abruptly stop talking.

‘Yes?’ he said.

The door slid open and Katamari entered, giving a slight bow as he did so. Despite my amazement at what I’d just been told, I couldn’t help but reflect that the senior monk’s change in attitude to the Englishman was really quite profound! It was now as though Katamari had a definite respect for Holmes, and his abilities.

‘Forgive my disturbing you,’ Katamari began, as Holmes made some small gesture indicating that this was fine. ‘I just wondered if…’

The rest of the question was obvious.

‘Katamari-
san
,’ began Homes, ‘is there any part of the temple I have not yet seen?’

‘You mean – as in you needed to see the large pond outside the tearoom, to guess that a tunnel ran along the bottom of it?’ returned the senior monk. Clearly, he was no fool.

Holmes nodded.

‘Yes, that is correct,’ he said honestly. ‘I confess that otherwise I can see no meaning in these words, as yet.’

Katamari thought for a few moments.

‘Well, all the rooms occupied by the monks are almost identical to this one, or the one you saw the body of Isuke lying in,’ declared Katamari uncertainly. ‘You’ve seen the main hall, the tearoom, the main entrance, the dining hall… Really, I don’t know where else – ’

He paused, quite suddenly.

‘Katamari-
san
?’ prompted Holmes.

‘Well – there’s the Barrel Room, I suppose,’ declared the senior monk.

‘The Barrel Room? Where is this – and what does the name signify?’

‘It’s located behind the main hall – I mean, beyond the corridor that runs behind the altar,’ Katamari replied. ‘As for the name, I believe it’s because barreled supplies – preserved food and such – were once stored there. Now, we continue to use it as a general storage area. There is nothing of any interest there, except…’

‘Yes?’ said Holmes, slight impatience sounding.

‘Well,’ said the monk, looking shrewdly at the famous foreigner, ‘maybe it would be best just to show you. Shall we go now?’

‘Yes,’ said Holmes. ‘Let’s.

9

Some of the wind which had sprung up outside whistled along the corridors of this ancient temple, as the three of us walked towards the main hall. We entered, and headed across the
tatami
mats that were on one side of the altar with its great, golden statue of Buddha, surrounded by lighted candles, in the direction of a small doorway.  

This, I discovered, led out to yet another long, but also very narrow corridor. It was gloomy – increasingly so as the stormy afternoon turned to evening, the light coming in through the main hall’s, wood-and-paper windows beginning to diminish.

Katamari found a lamp on a shelf, and lit it. He stopped outside a small wooden door that was situated along this corridor, opposite from the main hall. 

Pushing the door open – it was unlocked – he then led us inside. It was a cool, stone-floored room with numerous shelves and such placed along two walls. There was only one small, cobweb-covered window, so it was dark away from the flickering flame of the lamp. All in all, a singularly unremarkable room – except for one thing.

Sited the entire length of one wall, a little over six feet tall and approximately ten feet wide, was an impressive painting of Buddha’s death. He was stretched out below a hanging tree that was beside a beautiful river. Gathered all around him were various people and animals, from Indian priests to small white elephants, all of them weeping as the prostrate, barefooted Buddha – clad in an orange robe – gave a gentle smile.

The quality of the painting had been affected by age, and patches of white mold showed here and there, mainly around its edges. It at once caught Holmes’s eye.

Obligingly, Katamari held the lamp closer to it, enabling the English detective to make his keen-eyed inspection.

‘When was this painting done?’ asked Holmes softly. I
sensed
that he’d realized something. There was suddenly the slightest edge to his voice, discernible only to someone who’d lived and worked with him for some months now…

Or so I thought. But then I realized that Katamari was studying Holmes’s face closely, as though searching for some sort of sign…

‘I believe it was completed shortly after this temple was built – by Gyoja-
sama
himself, if the legend is correct,’ returned the senior monk.

Both Katamari and I now observed that Holmes’s attention was fixed upon some bushes and plants painted on one side of this picture – maybe about a third of the way up.    

‘Of course,’ said Holmes, speaking as though to himself. ‘What a fool I have been –that I should have needed to see a picture, even, to realize what this last riddle referred to!’

‘You – you
know
?’ said Katamari, surprise showing on his thin face.

‘It’s as simple as the other two,’ returned Holmes almost angrily. ‘That it’s taken me this long to realize it – almost twenty-four hours – is proof that whatever ‘ability’ I possess has been rather exaggerated.’

‘But what – what is the meaning?’ demanded the senior monk, now breathing a little quicker.

It was Holmes’s turn to give a quick, shrewd look at Katamari. Just for a split-second, however; then the detective said –

‘‘Natural beauty becomes / True beauty?/ In accordance with / Human ideal’ – so reads the first ‘verse’ of the last riddle we found. But where do we find natural beauty – and how do we shape it, so it proves aesthetically pleasing to our own, ‘human ideal’?’

Such was the question the foreigner fired at Katamari and me, in our own tongue. Unsurprisingly, perhaps, neither of us even attempted an answer. 

 
‘Next – ‘A dwarf / Or a cliff / Swept by the wind / Or by attachment to a rock / Salvation,’ continued Holmes remorselessly, the pupils of his eyes like pinpricks. ‘Still no idea?
Bonsai
, of course! The perfect example of natural beauty being shaped and nurtured by us, humans, into what we consider to be pleasing to the eye.