The Oriental Casebook Of Sherlock Holmes Part 10

"'Simple my dear Watson. I am perforce a student of the human face. You may recall that I had begun the study of photographs of all the princ.i.p.als while still in Italy. Despite the emaciated appearance of the dead man, I could still make out the basic physiognomy. There was only the most superficial resemblance, the kind of resemblance that might fool a foreigner but not a trained observer, particularly one who had made a special study. The dead man was put there at some point to deceive not only me but Dorjiloff as well. But by whom? And again, where was Manning? At this point I did not know. But I was now almost certain of two things: one, that Manning was still alive and two, that Pema, who loved him, did not know this and thought sincerely that Manning was the dead man. She had taken me there fully convinced that we would find Manning. But he had been removed from the cage before his death and a second man was put in his place. The deception was meant to fool even the woman Manning loved."

"Who then was the dead man?"

"That was the easiest part of the mystery, Watson. It was Sackville-Grimes, the criminal arsonist, who had come to an unfortunate but hardly undeserved fate. He had been brought into the imbroglio merely because he was an Englishman and a suitable subst.i.tute for Manning. He resembled Manning in a rather crude way, and I recognised him with difficulty but emphatically. I must say that knowing what I did of his evil career I did not mourn his fate."

"I must say, Holmes, that the whole affair is bizarre. I sense a sure and powerful hand in all this, perhaps Manning himself and his as yet unknown allies."

"Not bad, Watson. Your conjectures are well founded, and I regretted greatly then, as I do now, your absence. In a place like Lhasa one needs all the help one can get, and your a.s.sistance would have been greatly appreciated."

"I am afraid I would have been of little help, my dear Holmes, beyond giving you a bit of morale and some physical support now and then," said I.

"It is no small thing, Watson, to employ my methods in a place as different from London as Lhasa."

"I should think that the transition would have been very difficult," said I.

"True enough," he replied, "but the question is why. Clearly, the laws of deduction and observation hold, for they are of universal application. But I had to be alert to the particulars of Tibetan existence to understand where to apply them. In addition, I realised that despite my penchant for working alone, I had often used Scotland Yard, particularly its two most able detectives, Gregson and Lestrade, as foils against the false solutions that often present themselves to the investigator. In Lhasa I had no interlocutors at all. My methods, therefore, faced their greatest test. It was my brain and my brain alone that had to find solutions in an increasingly hostile milieu. Finding Manning or learning what had happened to him proved to be my first problem. From what evidence could I begin to deduce his fate?"

"A most difficult problem, if I do say so, my dear Holmes," said I.

"Yet, Watson, no sooner had I asked myself these questions about my absolute aloneness than I realised that Manning could only have escaped a cruel fate with the aid of others. In no other place in the world perhaps, Watson, does one so immediately feel oneself to be an intruder. Yet, I thought, surely British interests must be supported by some in Tibet. I had followed in Manning's footsteps; I had essentially the same mission. I knew the same princ.i.p.als in the drama that Manning knew. Among those common to us surely there were those who might be friendly."

It was precisely at that point in his reasoning that it occurred to Holmes that the short little man from Katmandu, the merchant Gorashar, might provide him with support and perhaps some needed information. It was now almost dawn. The princess Pema had retired. Directing Purna Lal to take Yamamoto to the residence of the Chinese amban, Holmes returned to the house of Gorashar. He found the merchant seated in a small room, going over the previous day's accounts with a man named Pushkar, one of his a.s.sistants. Gorashar looked up and said, "Let us have tea."

"I need your help," said Holmes. "I must find Manning."

"Ten minutes for tea," said Gorashar, avoiding Holmes's plea by blowing a puff of smoke from his cigarette.

Gorashar's English was pa.s.sable but heavily accented. His native tongue was the Newari language, the language of most Nepalese merchants in Lhasa, a language ultimately related to the Tibetan, but markedly different from it in spirit. As he spoke to his servants in his own language, Holmes found it most pleasing to the ear, far more than the bazaar Hindustanee, which was the other lingua franca among the merchants.

They sipped their tea-not the Tibetan salt tea, but the garam chai of India-at what was for Holmes an entirely too leisurely pace. Then Gorashar stood up and said, "You come."

Holmes followed him down a long corridor that led out to a small courtyard. On one side was a large stone sculpture of the Buddha. Gorashar led him to the wall behind it. There, unconcealed but also not particularly noticeable, was a small door. Gorashar opened it, and Holmes, bending as low as he could, followed him through it, straightening up after the entrance into what was a small but pleasant room. Seated at the far end, looking haggard and thin, was Sir William Manning. Holmes looked at Gorashar with a mixture of surprise and grat.i.tude. Gorashar smiled and left them alone.

"Sir William," said Holmes, "finding you has not been easy. Indeed, I had begun to think that you might be dead by now. I have here a letter from London which will explain to you who I am and the circ.u.mstances that have brought me here."

Manning took the letter, opened it, and read it anxiously. As he read, Holmes noticed that his face relaxed somewhat and he became more at ease.

"So, Mr. Holmes," he said, "you follow in my footsteps. I must tell you that my own mission has been an utter failure. I am fortunate to be alive, and, thank G.o.d, I am about to depart. The Regent, whom I have never met, has agreed to allow me to leave secretly with the proviso that I divulge nothing of my stay here to the outside world and that I never return to Tibet."

"That means that you may still talk to me."

"I have little to tell, strangely enough. So deeply disturbing has been my stay here that my mind already appears to have erased itself of the details and even some of the major events of my sojourn. One year ago, I arrived, as you may well know from your own voyage, sick, tired to the point of exhaustion, but with a sense of exhilaration at having finally reached the forbidden city of Lhasa. I was met by an official of the Potala, who took me to my lodging, and I turned over to him the letters concerning my mission. I sent a message to the Viceroy informing him of my arrival, but I was allowed no further communication with the outside world."

Days pa.s.sed, he said, and no call came. He was well cared for and carefully watched, since a guard was posted in front of the house where he lived. One day, after several protests, he was told that the Regent would see him finally. But the meeting never came. After four months, he became somewhat restless, even belligerent sometimes. On one occasion, he walked unannounced into the office of a high-ranking monk, whom he had met casually, and demanded his help in getting the meeting to come to pa.s.s. He pounded the table and shouted, but his anger only produced uneasy laughter and embarra.s.sment on the monk's face, and he went home, empty-handed and humiliated. He had become a noisy annoyance for the Tibetans instead of a silent one.

"Shortly after my arrival here," he continued, "I met the princess Pema, and became totally enamoured. She was married, however, and I kept my affection for her to myself. I respected her husband deeply. He was a brave man who was charged with protecting the eastern borders of Tibet against rebel incursions, incursions that were never announced but occurred with increasing frequency. Unfortunately, he was killed during an ugly battle in Kham. Pema came to rely on me in those early days of her grief, and I did all that I could to help her. Eventually, a relationship of intimacy developed between us. Yamamoto, who, unbeknownst to either of us, had had me watched from the moment of my arrival, learned of our growing relationship, and informed Dorjiloff, who used it as a pretext to have me arrested. For two months I was a prisoner in the dungeons of the Potala and then in the Garden of Punishment, where I fully expected to die. My arms were stretched forwards in a rack and an iron cage was put over my head. Feeding myself was impossible. I was given nothing to eat or drink except when someone took pity upon me. Pema tried to see me and to get me freed, but to no avail. Knowing the purpose of my mission, Dorjiloff fully intended to have me dead so that he could precipitate a crisis with our Government. Despite the prohibition on her entering the Garden of Punishment, Pema came to me one night. I was by this time almost delirious with pain and hunger, and I only remember bidding her good-bye. I must have lost consciousness, for I remember nothing until I awoke here in this room. I know that I was probably near death when someone must have taken me from that terrible prison and brought me here. Thanks to the ministrations of Gorashar, I have recovered much of my strength. I have now received written orders to leave the country as soon as possible. This is the only official acknowledgement of my visit here. My mission has been a total failure."

Holmes listened with the greatest interest as Manning spoke, for his story made clear that the original decision to kill him, made probably by Dorjiloff himself, had been rescinded.

He paused for a moment and then pulled the bra.s.s b.u.t.ton taken from the vulture's talons from his pocket.

"This must be yours," he said.

Manning looked at it curiously for a moment, and then said, "No, it is not mine, despite the initials. I have never seen anything like it before."

Holmes smiled inwardly, for it was then that the idea he had when he first saw the b.u.t.ton came to final fruition. Manning was not the center of this Tibetan drama, nor was he a major actor in it. He was, if anything, a victim, as so many had been in the past, of events that were controlled by others. As Holmes began to realise what was happening in Tibet, a whole series of ironies revealed themselves, and he knew then that he had but one course of action. It was then too that he sensed the growth of trust between himself and Gorashar. He felt, for the first time, that he had an ally upon whom he could rely.

He took leave of Manning, who, he believed, was now as safe as he could be in the city of Lhasa, and returned to Gorashar's own quarters. There he told the merchant that he needed his help once again. Holmes looked directly into Gorashar's eyes: he was determined to enter the Potala that very night and to meet the Regent face-to-face. Gorashar looked at him quizzically, then smiled and said, "You very intelligent man. Many things knowing you are."

A rather devilish grin broke out on his face as Holmes told him what he planned to do. Then a serious look crossed his face as he revealed to Holmes the easiest way to enter undetected. In the past, Gorashar himself had been asked by various officials to come to the Potala at night and was thoroughly familiar with the building. First, he said, the Potala is well protected but not impregnable. After midnight, the guards are generally asleep, those at the north entrance being the laziest. Dressed as a monk, Holmes should have no difficulty entering and then moving about, for there are few guards inside, and the patrols pa.s.s only once every two hours. He reviewed with Holmes the general plan of the palace and the location of the quarters of the Grand Lama and the Regent. Then he promised to supply him all that he would need in the way of disguise, including a monk's robe that would suit his frame. It was at that moment that he took from a drawer in his desk the gold knife that served as the occasion for this story.

"Please take this and keep it with you. You may need it."

Holmes took it with grat.i.tude, for he had no weapon of any kind, and the knife provided him at least with a fighting chance should he be attacked.

"Show it to the Regent as soon as you enter," he said.

Holmes spent the rest of the day readying himself for the visit. Then, in the dead of night, he left Gorashar's residence and walked quickly through the dark streets of Lhasa to the foot of the Potala. He felt his way around the west wall to the north side. There he saw a narrow stone staircase that led halfway up the ma.s.sive building to what appeared to be an entranceway. There was no one in sight, and the night was completely still. He climbed the stairs as quickly and quietly as he could. To his delight, he found the door unlocked. It led directly to a dark corridor, dimly lit by a series of oil lamps placed at long intervals along the wall. A monk pa.s.sed in prayer, but he was so engrossed that he noticed nothing. From some distance ahead Holmes then heard the drone of the monkish chant of Tibet. He judged that he was close to the Grand Lama's quarters. So far Gorashar's directions were exact. He had instructed Holmes very carefully with regard to the Regent's quarters: the second door after the chanting room. The Regent usually slept alone there, with no guard.

Holmes pa.s.sed the monks in their chant and arrived at the Regent's door. He opened it. There, seated at his writing table in the flickering light of an oil lamp, observing him impa.s.sively in no great surprise, sat the Regent of Tibet, the great Tsarong.

For a moment that seemed an eternity, they stared at each other. They had reached the end game, and Holmes decided to move first.

"Well done, Moorcroft," said Holmes in English deliberately and slowly, "your impersonation has been perfect. Little did we suspect that Britain has had a friend in high places in Tibet these many years."

There was no immediate reaction. So complete was the Regent's composure that for a moment Holmes thought his reasoning to be incorrect. Then, slowly, a slight smile crossed the old man's face. Holmes could see his lips begin to form hesitantly the syllables that began to cross them, as if the language he was about to speak had not been used for decades. Holmes took the gold knife from his pocket and threw it on the floor between them.

"Who are you?" he asked slowly. The words were perfectly formed, but Holmes heard the accent of the distant past in them, and a voice that had not used English for over half a century.

"Who I am is of little importance. If you must know, my name is Sherlock Holmes. My mission is that of which you have been informed."

"Sherlock Holmes is dead," said the Regent emphatically.

"One should not believe all that one hears. I am amused that the report of my death has reached as far as Lhasa, and doubly amused that someone such as you, who was reported dead many years ago, believed it. How odd that we should be seated here together in the Potala, two Englishmen who have so successfully manufactured our own deaths that we are believed by all the world to exist no longer."

"An odd coincidence, indeed," he said, bemusedly, "although I have been dead for almost fifty years longer than you. And how long do you propose to prolong your own death?"

"Provided that you and I come to an understanding not to reveal each other's circ.u.mstances, I shall remain in my present state indefinitely, or at least until I have rid the world of several archcriminals, some of whom are my personal enemies, dedicated to my demise. A few of them have taken refuge here, as you probably know."

"I am aware of the presence of these Western criminals, and have found their presence most annoying. As to you, I shall be completely silent. You may continue as Doctor Sigerson, and as such you may stay in Tibet as long as you please. I shall help you in every way. I have not been pleased about the influx of riff-raff from America and Europe into Tibet, and I have done everything to prevent their entry. In some cases, however, I have found their presence useful."

He smiled as he uttered the last few words.

"Like Sackville-Grimes," said Holmes.

"Like Sackville-Grimes, of course. But I would include Dorjiloff and Yamamoto. These are the mercenaries of the Russians and the j.a.panese, pretending to be other than they are. But Tibet in many ways has become a land of pretense, a land in which nothing is quite as it seems. To Lhasa in disguise: is that not the cry? Everyone is in disguise," he said.

He paused for a moment, then continued: "I of course came in disguise myself but stayed so long that the disguise became reality. At a certain point in my stay, I found myself suddenly thrust by events into the middle of Tibetan politics. I did not shirk the responsibility that fell on my shoulders. When the present Grand Lama comes of age, that responsibility will end. Through these many years, I have worked to keep Tibet out of the clutches of its neighbors, and I have instructed the young lama in the politics of independence. But I do not know whether the Tibetan theocracy is ready to a.s.sert itself sufficiently to guarantee its independence in the future. This is why I have relied heavily on a friendly neutrality with the British through the years. My years of effort may in the long run prove to be in vain. The Russians, the j.a.panese, the Chinese, are all ready to pounce . . . but more of that later. How did you come to know my ident.i.ty? Almost no one else knows, so you must have reasoned it out yourself."

"In my profession, it is the smallest things that often make the difference," said Holmes. He reached into his pocket and produced the b.u.t.ton that he had found in the vulture's talons. He handed it to the Regent.

"Ha!" he exclaimed. "'A mistake on my part, but something that I thought necessary at the time. But I still want to hear your reasoning."

(Holmes went to his desk, retrieved the b.u.t.ton, and handed it over to me.) "It is clarity itself," he said to the Regent. "My methods are based on the minute observation of trivia, in this case a b.u.t.ton, innocuous in itself. The b.u.t.ton bears the initials W.M., obviously coincident with the initials of William Manning. But close examination of the small threads left in it, together with its somewhat antique appearance, led me to hypothesise that the b.u.t.ton as well as the coat to which it had been sewn was made in the early part of the century. You will notice that the b.u.t.ton also bears inside the inscription of the maker, Rollins and Company, a company that disappeared several decades ago. If this came from Manning's jacket, he would of necessity have been wearing an antique piece of costumery, highly unlikely judging from what I had heard of his sober ways. When I found the coat itself on the dying form of Sackville-Grimes I knew that something was amiss: it was meant to identify Manning to those who wished to believe that Sackville-Grimes was Manning. But who could manipulate things in such ways? Who had such power? And who might have such a coat? Here one had to look at recent Tibetan history as well, the broad picture if you will, as it coincided with these minute bits of evidence, for despite the wishes of Dorjiloff and Yamamoto to the contrary, Tibetan policy had more or less followed British desires over the last few decades. What if this were not accidental but were due to the firm intentions of someone high in the Tibetan Government? Suppose that person was the Regent himself? Suppose that the Regent did not wish to see Manning die but wished him only to leave? Suppose the Regent himself had arranged to have Manning removed before death and the coat put on the body of the moribund Sackville-Grimes as an added indication of his ident.i.ty?"

And here Holmes paused and said slowly, "And suppose that the Regent himself were an Englishman? An absurd thought? Yes, absurd, but were it true, who might that Englishman be? Who might fit the historical record as well as the initials on the b.u.t.ton? The name of the early adventurer Moorcroft immediately comes to mind, but his first name is Clement, and so there is a difficulty. But Moorcroft sticks in one's mind because his death is unexplained and uncertain, a casual mention in the diary of Le Pere Huc, the well-known French monk and traveller. "He died while leaving Tibet." That is all we know. "All of this came to me in a flash, far faster than the time it takes to relate my reasoning-"

"Enough!" he interrupted. "Well done, Holmes. I see why your reputation grew so quickly. If you must know, the coat with the b.u.t.tons belonged not to me but to my father, William Moorcroft, and of course I did not die while leaving Tibet. I left the papers of Clement Moorcroft on the body of a dead friend and re-entered Tibet in disguise with a group of Newar merchants led by Dharma Ratna, the father of Gorashar. It was Dharma Ratna who retrieved the knife that you have placed before us from the dead body of Farouk, the a.s.sa.s.sin of my own father. On learning my story, he kept my secret, and returned the knife to me. Later, I gave it to his son, Gorashar, in friendship, and he has remained my confidant. I have been in Tibet ever since, and I became through the years a Tibetan. The story of my life here is of course rather unique and I may divulge it to you someday."

The Regent then rang a bell, and two guards carried in a figure, bound and gagged, whom Holmes recognised immediately in the dim light as Dorjiloff. The Regent walked up to him, removed his gag, and slapped him across the face with all his still considerable strength.

"You have tried my patience these many years, Dorjiloff," he said in Tibetan, "and I have suffered your cruelties and stupidities in my country as long as they served my broad purpose. They no longer do. You are to leave Tibet now and forever. I have arranged an escort that will take you to the Russian border. Do not return upon pain of death."

Dorjiloff tried to free himself, but to no avail. He said nothing coherent, for the insult of a slap across the face had angered him beyond words. He cast a malevolent look in Holmes's direction before he was carried out. He never encountered him again but later learned that in attempting to re-enter Tibet he was killed on the spot by border guards, thus bringing to a futile end a career dedicated to the cause of evil.

"I think, Mr. Holmes," said the Regent, "that it would be best for us to limit our direct contacts in the future, considering the complexity of the political situation here. You may stay as long as you like, and I will provide you with every facility to continue your botanical and zoological studies, and incidentally to rid us of some of our more nefarious visitors."

"I agree to that. We can continue to communicate through the one person that both of us trusts in Lhasa."

"Gorashar," he said.

"Yes," said Holmes, "Gorashar."

Holmes stopped for a moment to light his pipe.

"A most engrossing tale, Holmes."

"Indeed, Watson, and there is little more that need be told. Sir William Manning and the Tibetan princess Pema left Tibet and are now living here in London. I see them on occasion. Yamamoto was put in the custody of the Chinese authorities, and I gather that he died recently in a prison in Shanghai. Unfortunately, the accomplice of Dorjiloff, Rastrakoff, escaped, to my chagrin, and I was to deal with him later. I myself remained in Lhasa for almost two years and was not only able to bring several other criminals to justice but also a.s.sisted in preserving the delicate relations between Tibet and our government. I then left on my long journey in the Orient, which eventually brought me homewards. It was on the final leg of my journey that I learned, to my great sadness, that the Regent had died just after the new Grand Lama came to office."

"And what did you learn of Moorcroft's own life, Holmes? How on earth did it happen that an Englishman became the Regent of Tibet?"

Holmes walked to his desk and pulled from a drawer what appeared to be an old ma.n.u.script.

"Here, dear Watson, is Moorcroft's own statement of his life in Tibet up to my departure. Perhaps you will find it of interest. You will see that he was a most improbable Englishman. He gave me his account just before I left Lhasa. As an explanatory postscript you will find it most valuable. You will notice some differences in our recollection. Do not try to reconcile them, for each of us is ent.i.tled to a good story told for our own purposes."

He smiled as he uttered the last few words, for I knew that he often thought that I should limit my accounts to the barest essentials necessary to the introduction of the principles of observation and deduction. I smiled back, but said nothing, and began to study the thin volume that had been placed in my hands.

The ma.n.u.script was an old Indian notebook, of the kind that I later learned is manufactured in Indore in the Central Provinces of India and readily available in Bombay. The leaves were smooth and of a bright yellow paper, the cover of a bright crimson cloth. Around the whole was tied a piece of white string. I untied it, opened the cover, and began to read, written in a beautiful archaic though shaky hand, the long entry that follows.

THE DIARY OF CLEMENT MOORCROFT.

In this my eighty-fifth year, I, Getong Tsarong, Regent of Tibet, set down here, for those who may be interested, a short account of my life. I entrust this doc.u.ment to one person, my friend Hallvard Sigerson, whose property it is and who will be free to publish it after my death in any form he chooses, provided that through its publication he deems that no harm will come to Tibet or its people.

My life has been a long one, and though it did not begin in this ancient land, I have spent most of it here. I find it difficult to write in English after so many years, during which I have not spoken nor heard my own tongue for but a few moments, and so my hand shakes as I write, not only because I am old physically, but because my mind works slowly, trying as best it can to wrest words from the dim storehouse of a wandering remembrance.

I was born in 1810, the only child of William Moorcroft, a seaman of Cornwall, and Jane, his wife. My father and mother were first cousins, but did not resemble each other. I never knew my mother, for she died shortly after my birth. My father, who was only twenty-one years of age at the time of my birth and having no other children, placed me with his cousin, my mother's older sister, who lived with her husband and family in a modest house in London. I was well cared for and came to love my aunt and uncle as my parents.

It was through my aunt that I learned the little that I know of my mother. She was said to be a tall, dark, English beauty, with olive skin and long black hair which she often wore in a long braid down her back, other times looped tightly around her head. I was said to resemble her in many ways. My aunt remembered that I was born with a full head of black hair, like my mother's. In explanation of our appearance, my aunt told me that my great-grandfather was a man by the name of Ogachgook Bradford, an American Indian of mixed origin, who had come to England with William Bradford, one of the governors of the Plymouth Colony of the Ma.s.sachusetts Bay Company. Ogachgook had taken Bradford's name and remained in England. It was from Ogachgook that my mother's and my dark appearance was said to derive. I know little else of Ogachgook except that he was the son of an Indian chief called King Philip by the colonists, but known among his own people as Metacomet, son of Ma.s.sasoit. There was some family speculation that the name "Moorcroft" is derived in some way from "Metacomet."

I saw little of my father for the first five years of my life for he was almost always at sea. His grief at my mother's death seemed never to subside, and he later confided to me that it caused in him an almost constant wandering. He came to see me as often as his travels allowed him, and I looked forward to his visits with great joy, for we prowled the city together for long hours, and when I tired he would pick me up and carry me for long distances.

One day, sometime in my eighth year, my father announced that he would like me to accompany him on his next voyage. a.s.suring my aunt that I would be well cared for, he took me with him to his next ship, a large frigate bound for the Americas. And so, as a very young boy, I began my travels with a voyage to the New World. I remember little of this trip, except that I took ill shortly after we left port. My sickness did not abate for several days, for the sea was rough and we had to pa.s.s through a great storm.

As we approached the continent of North America, the scent of pines filled the air, and the sun broke out from behind the clouds that had covered it for so long. We docked in Boston, and went ash.o.r.e the following day. We were there for three weeks before we were to sail again. We sailed south to New York, and it was here that my father decided to stay in America rather than return to England. After a few months of city life, however, his restlessness set in again, and he decided to seek his fortune elsewhere in America. We started west, journeying through Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Illinois, then through the Mexican territories, finally reaching the coast of California. Here my father tried to become a rancher and for a year he tended the cattle of a prosperous gentleman. But my father's desire for the sea could be postponed only so long, and after almost four years in America, exhausted by the toil necessary to keep us alive, he once again took us to sea, this time across the Pacific, where we sojourned in the Sandwich Islands, j.a.pan, and then the coast of North China. Eventually we wandered from Hong Kong to Macao and to Singapore, where he took employment on a ship bound for England.

By this time I was twelve years of age, and my father thirty-two. We were as close as two brothers and had become inseparable. My father decided, however, that I needed schooling, so he tried to leave me with my aunt again so that I could be placed with a tutor, but I refused to stay without him. And so for one year he remained with me while I improved my knowledge of English, Greek, Latin, and mathematics.

It was during this period that my father met a Persian gentleman engaged in commerce and trade in the Caspian Sea. His name was Mr. Barzami. Impressed with my father's experience and energy, he offered him a lucrative position as his permanent representative in London. The position necessitated first, however, an extended stay in Persia at the company's offices in Tabriz. Because of the dangers of travel, my father was reluctant to take me with him, but I refused to stay behind and would have none of it. After a week of argument, he, I think rather happily in the end, agreed that we would continue our adventures together. In a few days, Mr. Barzami arranged our travel to Tabriz. We landed in Istanbul, and from there we journeyed through the Ottoman territories of Anatolia and Armenia, finally arriving at our destination.

Mr. Barzami had arranged much for us. We were given a large bungalow with sunny, comfortable rooms. Outside was a most beautiful garden, and so for the first time in our lives we lacked for nothing. I was placed with a local tutor and in time I came to speak the Persian language with great fluency.

Almost one year after our arrival, Mr. Barzami, instead of posting my father to England, asked if he would accept a position in Bombay. My father reluctantly agreed, considering the many kindnesses and opportunities that Mr. Barzami had visited upon us, and in a few weeks we left our idyllic existence in Persia and headed for India, where we arrived some three weeks later. Here we were again well treated, for Mr. Barzami had his agents meet us and provide for us.

It was here in India, not long after our arrival, that my life was changed forever and embarked upon the strange course that it has now almost completed. One of my father's first duties was to establish contact with merchants to the north, particularly in Kashmir. And so one day we boarded a crowded train to Pathankot in the Punjab and then began our long trek to Shrinagar, the capital city of Kashmir. It was along this route that we were set upon by a gang of thieves. My father was killed and I, badly wounded, was left for dead. I remember nothing except a blow to the back of the head and then darkness. We were found by a group of Kashmiri merchants returning home. My life was saved by them, and they transported my father's body to Shrinagar, where he was buried in the English cemetery. Through the ministrations of the family of one of the merchants, I eventually recovered, but I suffered a severe amnesia for at least a month. When I had recovered sufficiently, the merchants told me what had happened. I was filled with grief for my father's death. The merchants said that they knew that we had been attacked by the gang of Farouk Abdullah, the cruelest of the robbers of Kashmir and the one they feared the most.

I vowed revenge. I knew that I should not be able to rest until I had brought my father's killers to justice. And so, in the hope of finding the murderous brigands, I stayed in Kashmir. I was fourteen years old, strong and growing stronger. I informed Mr. Barzami of what had transpired. Mr. Barzami tried to convince me to return to Persia, but in the face of my steadfast refusal, he relented and arranged for my father's funds as well as a generous gift to be transferred to a bank in India so that I could draw on them to help me trace the bandits.

The Farouk gang soon abandoned Kashmir, for so horrible had their depredations become that the Company deputed a military detachment to Kashmir to apprehend them. Farouk and his gang fled into the mountains, and nothing was heard of them. I waited in Kashmir for news of them, but the gang seemed to have disappeared into thin air. The military detachment remained and seemed to have so frightened the gang that their activities ceased almost entirely.

After almost a year of waiting, I decided to accompany my Kashmiri friends on a trip to Lhasa. By now I spoke some Kashmiri in addition to Persian and could travel un.o.btrusively. The route was the usual one from Shrinagar and we reached Lhasa without difficulty. I became immediately at home with the Tibetans and their country. I left Lhasa often to travel in the distant corners of the country, spending weeks with yak and sheep herders in Amdo and Kham. When it came time for our caravan to return, I decided to remain. Bidding good-bye to my Kashmiri friends, I stayed behind and continued my solitary travels. Eventually, I made my resting place in Amdo, in a small village where I was welcomed most warmly. I lived with a certain Gyerong and his family. Gyerong was only two years older than I, but he had a wife and three small children. Through the years that pa.s.sed, Gyerong and I became almost inseparable.

It was after five years of living in this way among the Tibetans that I decided to return to India. By now, my life had become so thoroughly Tibetan that I felt little connection with my past life, but the revenge I had promised myself for my father's death still haunted me. One day, I told Gyerong of my obsession, and he became the only one who knew my dark desire. He cautioned me and urged me to give up the idea, for it was an unworthy goal. To kill, he said, was against Buddhist doctrine. I tried to remove the desire from my heart, but my obsession would not leave me. I decided to return to Lhasa and there to decide my next move. Before I left, Gyerong gave me a knife with a golden handle as a token of our friendship. He said that the knife had been handed down for many years from friend to friend. The knife, as far as he knew, had never been used in anger or violence, and despite its fierce nature as a weapon, it had often had the effect of calming the anger of its possessor. I took it and thanked him profusely, but I felt no calming effect from its presence.

When I reached Lhasa, I learned that the Farouk gang had reappeared. A caravan of merchants on its way to the city had been attacked. The gang had fled Indian territory with a British detachment in hot pursuit, but they had outpaced the soldiers and made it to safety in Tibetan territory. It was reported that they had made their camp near the ancient city of Guge.

I decided to leave Lhasa at once for Guge, for I felt that fate was leading me to my goal. I joined a caravan going west. The leader of this group was a wealthy Ladakhi merchant, who, unwilling to take any risks, had hired for the journey a heavily armed escort, consisting mainly of retired soldiers from eastern Tibet. We encountered no difficulty at the outset, and five days into our trip we camped near Guge, to the south of the town. The attack came swiftly. Thinking us to be another barely armed caravan, the thieves fired a volley of warning shots and did little to hide their positions. They appeared together in front of our group, demanding that we surrender to them. Farouk himself sat proudly on horseback. Our riflemen, ready for any such contingency, wasted no time in opening fire, and the first shots took their toll. The thieves were taken completely by surprise and tried to flee, but most of them were gunned down. Farouk himself fell from his horse during the first few minutes of the battle. He staggered about, trying to rally his men, but to no avail. I raced towards him, my only weapon the gold knife. I grabbed him and there ensued a fierce struggle between us. Despite his wounds, Farouk was still extremely powerful, and it was only the strength of my obsession that enabled me to overwhelm him. I plunged the knife into his heart, and with a terrible groan, he fell and pa.s.sed from this existence.

I myself must have blacked out after the struggle, for when I became conscious I found that I lay amid the dead, the only person alive. The caravan had scattered, and I was alone. Farouk's body was next to me, and his eyes stared at me in the evening darkness, his face a mixture of mockery and pain. What had I done? I had killed a man in revenge, but he still looked at me defiantly. At the time of his death he had no idea who I was, and would have laughed had he known. I tried to console myself with the notion that I had rid the world of a great fiend. But as the night fell, I became filled with strange feelings of emptiness and the utter futility of the obsession that had led to pointless hatred that had drained me for so many of the years of my youth.

I fell into a deep sleep, and when I awoke in the morning, my mind was clearer than it had been since my father had died. Farouk was now only a decaying corpse. I left the knife in his chest for someone else to remove. I decided not to return to the world of my youth ever again, not to India, or Persia, or Europe. I would remain in Tibet for the rest of my life. Clement Moorcroft, whose existence had faded so much during the last ten years, was now no more. I placed my identification papers inside the coat of a badly disfigured thief who was about my height, and, turning east, I walked towards Lhasa, to begin anew my Tibetan existence.

It was a long and lonely walk. Upon my arrival there, I learned casually in the market place of the reported death of a young Englishman named Clement Moorcroft. His body and papers had been found by a group of Lhasa traders led by a merchant named Dharma Ratna, who came from Katmandu. Except for the gold knife, which eventually was returned to me, he turned everything over to Colonel Gillespie, the leader of the British military detachment that had chased the Farouk gang into Tibet. Gillespie had all the dead buried there at the sight of the tragedy. I returned to Amdo and the only people who knew of my former existence.

I had been gone only a month, but terrible changes had taken place. An epidemic of cholera had wiped out most of the village. Gyerong, my friend, was dead. Only his wife and one of his children, the boy Pasang, survived. They were weak and close to starvation. It took me several days to bring them back from the brink, but within a week of my careful ministrations they had regained much of their strength, and were out of danger.

Because of my success with Pasang and his mother, I soon found myself treating others who had survived the epidemic. I told the headman of the district of my intention to stay indefinitely, and he welcomed me, saying that I should become the husband of Pasang's mother. Pasang's mother and I readily a.s.sented to this, since a great affection had developed between us, and I settled down as a family man and sheep herder in Amdo.

For over thirty years I led this life. Pasang grew up into a strong, handsome, young man who became a soldier in the Tibetan army. His mother and I had several children together, but late in our lives she gave birth to a child who reminded us so much of Gyerong that we named him after my dead friend. We called him Tenzing Gyerong. Tenzing was a special child from the first, remarkable in his intelligence and physical precociousness. He was a great gift as I began to near old age.

During the same year as Tenzing's birth, we learned that the Grand Lama, the so-called Dalai Lama, had died, and the search for his successor had begun.

As the reader may know already, it is the belief of all Tibetans that the soul of the departed lama reappears in the body of another, usually a young child, who must be found and identified. This child then is designated as the new Grand Lama. In this case, the search was an extensive one, but discouragingly difficult for the monks a.s.signed to the task. Time and time again the monks thought that they had found the Grand Lama's successor only to be disappointed in the last stages of their search. And so several years pa.s.sed and the Grand Lama's successor had yet to be found.

One day, three years after the search had begun, the committee of monks appeared in our village. There were three of them, old and senior monks of the Gelugpa sect. They came because they had heard rumors of the very bright child Tenzing who lived somewhere in Amdo. They came to our house and told us immediately of their mission. Tenzing saw them as he was playing with his friends, and ran towards them, smiling as if in recognition. He suddenly seemed to all of us older than his four years. We went inside together and the interview began. The monks had come with some of the personal possessions of the previous Grand Lama-his quill pen, a small silver bell, a ma.n.u.script of the mangalasutra, and a small silver statue of the Tathagata. Tenzing, as if recognising them, said that they were his. Increasingly encouraged by the results of the interview, the monks continued to ply our little son with all manner of questions. He appeared to give adequate answers to all of them. Finally, they asked to see his feet, to see if the infant shoes of the previous lama would fit. The monks looked at us as they took out the velvet slippers and told us that the previous lama had very narrow feet, unlike a Tibetan's. The senior monk looked at me and said with a smile, "The Tibetan foot is flat on the ground from end to end, and has three equally projecting toes. It is as square as a brick, but look at these shoes. They would never fit such a foot. The previous Grand Lama had what we call ar-ya pu-ta, or the foot of the Aryan, like the Buddha. Let us see if these slippers fit the feet of your son." Tenzing showed his feet, and the monk slipped the shoes on his feet. They fit perfectly, and at this moment the monks rose as one and bowed to Tenzing, who had pa.s.sed all the tests. The boy was asked to leave the room, and there ensued a long conversation with his mother and me over the time and circ.u.mstances of the child's birth. The monks then went outside to talk to other villagers and to survey the landscape to see if it fit with what the last Grand Lama had said would be the place of his rebirth. They returned in an hour to tell us that they believed that Tenzing was the next Grand Lama. So sure were they that they would dispense with the usual formalities and ask us to return to Lhasa with them. The ritual and legal authentification of Tenzing as the new Grand Lama in Lhasa took but a short time, so strong was the evidence, and the installation ceremonies took place shortly thereafter.

And so from a small village in Amdo, where I had lived so much of my life, I was transported to the Potala, and to a powerful position within the Tibetan hierarchy as the Grand Lama's father. The regent appointed to serve during the child's minority, an old man named Rinchung, died within two years, and I was chosen to succeed him as regent.

By then I was thoroughly familiar with the inner workings of the Tibetan government, and the conflicting desires of monk and layman, of aristocrat, peasant, and nomad. And it was then, too, that the first threats of foreign penetration began to affect the well-being of my adopted country. The British to the south insisted that their merchants be allowed to import the most abhorrent of foreign goods-liquor, opium, and firearms. I was able to block much of this, but the British became increasingly threatening. I began to see in the new overtures from the Russian and j.a.panese governments the only effective counterweight to British power. I soon realised, however, that the goals of these governments were equally if not far more dangerous to Tibetan interests and to Tibetan independence, for they themselves were anxious to remove British power from Asia and to divide the spoils, including Tibet, between themselves. Only the Chinese were no longer of concern, for despite the presence of the amban in Lhasa, their own growing internal weakness led me to disregard them, except when I found them useful.