Chapter 19
Author's Notes: Thank you to Haley Macrae, and no thanks to all of you who didn't review. Feel the guilt!!! This chapter is long, and should give you all ample reason to review. I cheated a little bit with the Kodak camera: Holmes should have sent the whole thing to Kodak, who would have developed the used film and sent the photos back to him with the camera full of new film. However, I figure a talented chemist and amateur enthusiast such as Holmes would have been able to develop the photos himself. I have been heavily influenced in my account of Russian history by Communist propaganda, but it's the best we have.
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August, 1891
Government House, Calcutta
Dear George,
We were all much relieved to receive news of your safe arrival in Tibet in the form of your letter, but we were mystified by its contents. You may imagine our dismay when the letter we had awaited for so long contained nothing but scraps filled with calculations. I admit that I pouted for quite a few days when at last it dawned upon me that it would not have been safe for you to write in plain English. I sat down, determined to work out the hidden meanings of the numerals in the code you had devised. I believe I have quite mastered it, but you must send corrections where I have made mistakes.
As regards your journey, Lord Lansdowne is well pleased by your decision to take the Nathula Pass. He has studied your route from Darjeeling, and thinks that your descriptions or the geography will be very useful. My uncle is impatient for your news of the situation at Lhasa, though I have tried to explain the possible reasons for a delay.
Lady Lansdowne has been exceedingly kind to me in your absence. She has a flair for entertaining, and has involved me in much of the planning for upcoming dinners, concerts, and balls. It is not what I have been accustomed to in my years in Florence, but it keeps me occupied nonetheless...
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October, 1891
Lhasa, Tibet,
Dear Martha,
I have purposely devised this code so that you might decipher it. That you were so quickly able to use it is, indeed, most convenient.
My expedition caused a stir as soon as we crossed the border into Tibet, and news of my arrival reached Lhasa sooner than I was prepared for. Although we camped outside the city, we were visited within days by a steady stream of Chinese and Tibetan diplomats. You may inform Lord Lansdowne and your uncle that the situation is much as we had feared. Although the Chinese claim suzerainty, they have little control over the region, and true power here is still exercised by the Dalai Lama.
My conclusions had largely to be based upon surmises and guesses at first. Although I had a translator, there can be no substitute for the language of the body; to my disappointment, I have found that it does not always translate. However, anxiety and fear are emotions which are common to the human race, and they were clearly evident in the faces of the Chinese officials who graced us with their visits.
All was going according to plan until one night when I was awoken roughly by a pair of hooded men. Although I have some knowledge of the martial arts practiced in the Eastern countries, I was well aware that my skills were no match for those of these two ruffians. Under the cover of darkness, I was taken from my encampment through the gates of the closed city of Lhasa. My two assailants stored me in a tiny room until dawn, whereupon I discovered that my belongings had travelled with me. I was fed and not otherwise mistreated, though I had to stay within my quarters. From the clothing and demeanor of those who attended to my needs, I gathered that I was being held in a monastery.
On the third day of my confinement, I was released from my room and led to a large, dim hall, past courtyards filled with chanting monks. The man before me was dressed in scarlet and saffron robes, and to my astonishment, spoke perfect English. He inquired for my name, though it was clear he did not need it, as my belongings had long before been searched. He did, however, seem to accept my explanation of being attached to the Royal Geographical Society's expedition to Tibet. He struck me as an altogether charming and intelligent man. Indeed, in the days following, he guided me around the monastery himself, taking particular care to explain the features peculiar to his form of Buddhism.
I must thank you, Martha, for your foresight in giving me your camera. The Dalai Lama has taken great interest in the art of photography, and we have spent the last week engaged in documenting the ancient city of Lhasa. I include in this package the photographs we have developed, and a report to accompany them. If you will forward them to your Uncle, he will see that the Society receives it. I believe that the information I am gathering will be of great utility in British efforts in Tibet...
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January, 1892
Government House, Calcutta
My dear George,
I enclose with this letter several new rolls of film that I have received from the Kodak Eastman Co., as well as the Royal Geographical Society's review, which includes your report on Lhasa. They have agreed to publish your findings in instalments.
My uncle wishes to know whether you have seen any evidence that the Russians are planning to invade Tibet. The Trans-Siberian Railroad is being constructed faster than was first expected, and the Foreign Office is concerned with the rapid expansion of Russian influence in the East.
I have also received a letter from your brother, who wishes me to assure you that your rooms at Baker Street remain untouched. He has included some copies of the Strand magazine, wherein a certain Dr Watson has published some of the adventures of a Sherlock Holmes. I thought they would amuse you, so I will include them here as well...
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March, 1892,
Lhasa, Tibet
Dear Martha,
I would like to thank you for your last package. It was a rare pleasure to read the accounts – however exaggerated – of London crime. I have completed another report for the Royal Society, and enclose it here. If you will obtain more film for the camera, I would be most grateful.
You may assure your uncle that in all my inquiries I have heard not so much as a hint of a threat from the Russian Empire. I believe that the true threat lies in the rumours and false information spread by the Chinese informants who mislead our government into acts of aggression. In fact, the past few months have been extremely quiet, especially now that I have convinced the Dalai Lama that his country has nothing to fear from Britain or its allies. It is my hope that Lord Lansdowne will live up to that gesture of peace and not allow his decisions to be swayed by those with malicious designs on land and peoples.
I grow tired of vainly waiting for the onslaught that will never come. Although I have immersed ymself in the daily life and rituals of this monastery, I cannot imagine that it is the wisdom of the Orient that the Ministry desire. Pray relate to your uncle that I cannot tell him what the Foreign Office wish to hear...
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May, 1892
Government House, Calcutta
Dear George,
Since you were so interested in the detective methods of Mr Sherlock Holmes, I have decided to send you some clippings about the sensational crimes which have recently shocked all of Europe. Apparently, there has been a string of daring robberies across France; a bank in Montpellier has been nearly bankrupted by forgeries, and a train-deluxe on the Riviera has been robbed in broad daylight. I cannot imagine what you will make of it.
As regards your previous letter, my uncle begs me to reply that although he is impressed by the force of your moral convictions, he himself remains unconvinced of their veracity. Thus, I am myself to depart for Russia, to better assess the situation. Your orders, I'm afraid, are to continue as you are...
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DEAR SIR STOP BEG YOU TO RECONSIDER STOP BB'S LIFE ENDANGERED STOP SIGERSON
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SIGERSON STOP KEEP OUT OF THIS STOP SMITH
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July, 1892
St Petersburg, Russia
Dear George,
I have sailed from Calcutta to Odessa, and taken a train through Moscow to St Petersburg. Neither the domes of India nor Istanbul could have prepared me for the churches of this country. Everywhere they are covered in glittering gold, and in Moscow, covered and crenelated as though struck by some architectural pox.
I was also unprepared for the barbarity of the people. The rest of Europe has not seen such extremes in the human condition since the age of feudal lords and serfs. Not even the misery of the gutters of Calcutta could match the abject poverty and hopelessness of the Russian peasants. And nearly everyone is a peasant. Yes, there are rich merchants and powerful nobles who live in the cities, but outside their gilded gates, they behave no better than the Gypsies who roam the streets. The army is cruel, the Czar is distant, the Church unsympathetic.
In my journey, I met a young Jew named Trepoff who told me of the horrors his people have endured. I do not speak of Egypt or the Inquisition – I speak of Russia in this very day! You may imagine how shocked I was (a citizen of Britain, where we have had Disraeli and the Rothschilds) to hear about the Pale of Settlement and the pogroms, where raging Cossacks rape and pillage the villages of innocent Jews, in the manner of the Huns, the Goths or the Vikings! Young Trepoff himself met an untimely end, though at whose hands, I cannot say. His house went up in flames during the night, and there was no investigation. I am deeply saddened at the loss...
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October, 1892
Lhasa, Tibet
Dear Martha,
I was indeed intrigued by the accounts of the sensational crimes in Europe, but I was more interested in the young Jew you spoke of. I was summoned to Odessa four years ago to investigate the murders of a family by that name, who also perished tragically in a conflagration. The elder Trepoff, it seems, had been a merchant whose ships were carrying cargo precious to the Imperial Crown. He was unwilling to cooperate fully with the authorities; his race made him expendable. He and his family thus met their end. I was called in, as though there was nothing to hide. The bandit who was paid to set fire to the house was caught, of course, but the true culprits remained unpunished. It is painful to hear that I was not able to prevent the death of the living heir, yet I was powerless to change the policies of an entire nation. Indeed, it seems I am a similar position now...
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December, 1892
St Petersburg, Russia
Dear George,
St Petersburg is a city for poets. I have been reading the writings of the Russian literary hero, Poushkine. He describes it as though he was standing beside me on the banks of the Neva, though he has been dead these 60 years. It is Versailles in Venice; more gilded than the palace of the Sun King, on canals more regular than the city of the Doges.
I have been presented at Court, and have attended regularly since. All the fashionable people here speak perfect French and English and the women order their gowns from Paris. The Hermitage rivals the Louvre for Old Masters, and each grand family has palaces which make Belgravia seem like mud huts in darkest Africa. Yet I sense a storm coming...
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SIGERSON STOP BE PREPARED TO MOVE AT EARLIEST INDICATION STOP SMITH
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February, 1893
Lhasa, Tibet
Dear Martha,
I have received a cryptic message from your uncle, who tells me that I should be prepared to leave Tibet at the earliest notice. He sent the telegram by mail, which seemed to me an unusual choice of communique for so urgent an order. My reports to the Geographical Society are regular, and I have not yet been relieved by another company of spies. Though at first I thought your prediction of a gathering storm too dramatic, the evidence suggests your female intuition was unmistaken...
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April, 1893
St Petersburg, Russia
Dear George,
The situation that the government had feared is about to transpire, but it will not transpire in Tibet. I have heard rumours, which have been confirmed at the highest diplomatic levels, that the Russians have taken a keen interest in Persia. It seems that they now hold it to be within their sphere of influence, and my uncle is inexplicably mentioning treason...
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June, 1893
Lhasa, Tibet
Dear Martha,
It is of the utmost importance that you obey each of my instructions immediately, and take no heed of any opposition in the form of your uncle or anyone else. Sir Edgar is quite right to suspect treason, and I believe I have the key to proving it. You must take your leave of St Petersburg and meet me in Palestine as soon as you can possibly reach it. You will travel to Jerusalem, and stay with the Catholic diocese. Wait there until you hear from me...
A/N: I believe that at least one of our intrepid pair is a Catholic, and I may publish a small monograph on that subject should there be sufficient interest. Notes for the December letter: the Sun King is Louis XIV, the Doge is the traditional ruler of Venice, Poushkine is still the great hero of Russian literature akin to Shakespeare for the English, and Belgravia is a fashionable and wealthy area in London. Now review! (press the button, you know you want to!)