The Oriental Casebook of Sherlock Holmes (44 page)

“Coincidence, yes Watson, but a coincidence in its most basic form: the names were coincident, identical, but I knew that this was no mere chance. Once again, a piece of unexpected luck from an unsuspected source, a dusty old book. Thank the gods for the memory of mankind, however imperfect. I said nothing to Benoît, of course, who, at the moment of my discovery, was fortunately deep in conversation with the royal librarian. I closed the book, filed the information in my brain, and decided to let it do its work in the attic of my mind: there were, then, two Captain Fantômes, two Benoît de Boignes.”

For over a week, neither Benoît nor Schaumberg showed any desire to leave Udaipur. It was on the evening of the tenth day that Benoît said that they had been there long enough and that they should move on. He said this with some urgency in his voice. They informed the Maharajah, who, grieved at their imminent departure, provided every convenience, including fresh horses for the journey to Jodhpur.

Jodhpur, said Holmes, lies three days from Udaipur, in the middle of a desiccated landscape in which only thorny scrub-desert plants survive. Its palace is interesting but not of the quality of those of Jaipur and Udaipur, and their stay there was short. It was there that he began to observe a rising tension in young Schaumberg, a tension which showed itself by his barely controlled anger in speech and his irritation at every mistake of the hapless porters. Several times he struck them. Benoît warned him quietly to control himself. Holmes said little, and kept slightly apart so that he could observe what transpired between them. Seeing Schaumberg’s growing state of agitation, Holmes knew that he himself might also eventually become the object of his ire, and he wished to avoid that moment as long as possible, though it might be inevitable. The Maharajah of Jodhpur was absent on
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, and so they camped outside the city walls, where they bargained for the camels that were to carry them to Jaisalmer. They left the very next morning.

It was on this portion of their journey, a day’s ride beyond Jodhpur, that they entered the true deserts of Rajpootana. What had been up until then a dry rocky landscape occasionally broken by the Aravalli Hills now became an undifferentiated mass of yellowish sand, of the finest quality, so that even a scant breeze blew enough of it into one’s face to cause discomfort. It being winter, the air was cool for the most part, the sun intense, and the landscape barren of any living thing except an occasional caravan treading its way east. The desert seemed endlessly smooth, effortlessly erasing every trace of their being there. Had a storm of sufficient force arisen, thought Holmes, they would have disappeared, covered forever in the unending dunes.

By now it had become quite clear to Holmes that the progress towards their destination was timed very precisely by Benoît, for reasons that were still concealed. As if controlled by an invisible hand, they alternately raced ahead or waited for him to complete his diary entries, which became the chief pretext by which the time of travel was determined. Holmes made no complaint, content as he was to wait and see. Schaumberg was, however, alternately tranquil and agitated. He appeared impatient to arrive at their destination and could not endure their slow pace without occasional outbursts to Benoît.

Two days from their destination, their guides informed them that sandstorms to the west were so intense that they had best make a detour northwards, towards a town called Bap that lay on the road to the great fortress of Bikaner. From there, they should follow that route south. A look of consternation came over Benoît’s face as he communicated this news to Schaumberg and to Holmes.

“Despite the danger, I believe that we should proceed as planned,” said Benoît. “The storms may be over by tomorrow. And we have no guarantee that we will not run into them to the north of here.”

“As you choose,” said Holmes, “I have no preference.”

Schaumberg, however, appeared frightened by the reports.

“I don’t like desert storms,” he said excitedly. “I have seen one in North Africa, and I say let’s take the detour. It won’t add much, and we’ll be much safer.”

“No detour,” said Benoît coldly. “We will proceed as planned.”

Schaumberg said nothing.

“And so, Watson, we continued on our route. A few hours out, the cool of the early morning had disappeared. The sun bore down on us mercilessly from the unending blue sky. Even more ominously, however, as we moved on, the gentle breeze which we had experienced thus far became more intense, and we began to feel the sting of the sand on our hands and faces. A storm was building, and we could see in the distance the tops of the dunes transformed into dancing swirls rising high in the air.”

Towards dusk, they began to look anxiously for shelter, and their chief guide changed direction. In a short time, they saw something on the horizon, and as they approached they saw what appeared to be an abandoned temple. The guides motioned them into it, and they took refuge just as the storm hit.

Holmes had never experienced anything equal to it. Sand swirled around them so intensely that it was as if all air had been sucked away. The temple was an open structure and the only recourse they had was to turn their faces to the walls. But as the wind increased, sand blew everywhere, sand filled their eyes, their nostrils, and it was almost impossible to breathe without taking it into their lungs. At the very height of the storm, Schaumberg began to scream in terror.

“‘We can’t stay here! We have to go on. C’mon! Are ye with me? We’re going to die like rats here!”

He grabbed Holmes by the arm, but he resisted. Then Schaumberg stood up screaming in fear and leapt from the temple directly into the storm. Benoît sat silently, but Holmes rushed after him to stop him from what he knew to be a suicidal act. As he grabbed him and pulled him in, Schaumberg collapsed in tears as Holmes and Benoît pressed his face towards the wall. Schaumberg sobbed, and Benoît shouted to him to be still. He kept sobbing to himself, however, and Holmes pretended not to hear as Benoît continued his remonstrances.

The storm subsided as fast as it arose, and Holmes looked out to see that it had moved passed, leaving nothing in sight but blinding white sand.

“The worst is over,” said Benoît. “You can shut up now.”

“Don’t tell me to shut up,” said Schaumberg, vehemently. “I have lived through too much in the Sahara. Don’t you remember? This is the last time—”

Benoît slapped him hard across the face.

“Just remember who you are—and who I am,” said Benoît viciously.

Schaumberg became calmer, and a morose look came over his face. The three dragged themselves through the sand on the temple floor, into the desert. All that they had brought with them was gone. Animals, water, food, the guides—all appeared to have been buried. They had nothing.

“We’re going to die,” said Schaumberg. “I know it. This time, we’re going to die.”

“You bloody coward, shut up!” shouted Benoît.

Schaumberg sobbed uncontrollably, and Benoît shook him to try to bring him to his senses, but to no avail. Benoît left him and searched the horizon. Schaumberg’s fears were fortunately not to materialise. He had been conditioned by his experience in the great Sahara. Here, however, the desert, though vast, was far more heavily travelled, and as they looked out they saw two campfires, not more than a few hundred yards away, towards which they immediately made their way. There, they found a group of Gujar herdsmen with their goats and camels. They had spent the day in Sam, they said, and had made a detour around the storm before returning to their route, their destination being the city of Jaisalmer. They offered the travellers food and shelter for the night and said that they would be welcome to accompany them to the desert city. And so, at dawn they awoke and, now provided with fresh camels to ride, began the last leg of their journey.

For two days they rode through the dunes. A merciless sun beat down upon them from a monotonous blue sky. Towards evening on the second day, they saw their destination in the distance: a series of sand-colored towers and walls rising suddenly out of the desert.

“I shall never forget that first glimpse, Watson,” said Holmes. “We rode first through the many monstrous cenotaphs of the Rajpoots, scattered as they were through the sand, and passed through the main gate at nightfall, lodging in our tents just inside the city walls. Our exhaustion made what little we saw of the population of the city that night seem even more unworldly than it otherwise would have seemed to be. The inhabitants were ghost-like, for all were dressed in long white caftans and white caps, with white masks over their faces. I later learned that the majority of the population were of the Jain faith, an Indian sect that practices no harm to living creatures. Fearful of injuring even an insect, they wear masks over their faces in order to avoid even the inadvertent inhalation of a fly or mosquito. Except for this oddity of behaviour, the population appeared quiet and tranquil, free of the many grotesque excesses that one finds in other parts of our Indian possessions. It was into this religious atmosphere of extreme gentleness that Benoît, Schaumberg, and I entered.”

I interrupted Holmes at this point.

“I dare say, Holmes, that the contrast between the common citizenry of this strange city and its latest guests must have struck you as a very strong one.”

“Indeed, it did, Watson, for Schaumberg and Benoît were tough men, bent on a mission of which I had uncovered little. Benoît was the leader, steady, cold, and calculating, with nerves of steel. Schaumberg was the follower, emotional, even more dangerous perhaps because of his unpredictability.”

“It must have been very difficult for you at times. I must say that I greatly admire your courage and your forbearance.”

“One tends to be courageous during the active crisis, Watson. As to my forbearance, there was nothing I could do but be patient. I knew too little, and I maintained a rather dogged silence, agreeable, and shall we say, a bit British at sometimes. I engaged in nothing but pleasantries, and even during the sandstorm I displayed only the usual British sangfroid. I was in all ways the English pharmacist, Roger Lloyd-Smith.

“Jaisalmer was as hot as any place in India,” he continued, “so hot even in the night that I took to sleeping on the roof of a hotel to which we had moved, where it was far cooler than inside. I awoke with the dawn and watched below as the city came alive with its morning rituals of bathing and lighting fires for the first foods of the day.”

It was on the fourth day, towards evening, that a fortunate occurrence enabled Holmes to progress towards a solution of the mystery of his companions. Both appeared to be very agitated, and they ventured forth very little. They were obviously waiting, perhaps for some signal for them to proceed. The heat was intense, and Holmes had availed himself of a free moment away from them to purchase the cool white cotton clothes that the natives wore, including the mask. So attired, he walked up from the lower city to the high walls in order to view the desert from the city, when, glancing down, he saw, sitting together below him, Shiva and their two camel drivers, all of whom he had presumed to be dead or lost in the desert.

They did not see Holmes, and he watched as they talked. The camel drivers soon went off, and Holmes rushed down to follow Shiva to his lair. He walked so quickly that Holmes almost lost sight of him in the crowd, but he caught up with him just as he turned into the small and dingy doorway of a native hotel. Holmes followed him up the stairs and knocked on his door gently so as not to alarm him. He removed his mask and when Shiva opened he turned pale as if he had seen a ghost. He tried to resist, but Holmes forced his way in.

“Do not be afraid, Shiva,” he said calmly. He told him that despite the storm, they had arrived safely in Jaisalmer, and that he only wanted him to tell everything that he knew of Schaumberg and Benoît.

“They will kill me if I talk to you,” he said.

“So you ran away in the storm. They think you are dead—and indeed, you thought that all three of us were dead, correct?”

“Yes, I thought you were dead, yes, and that I was finally free from them. I have been Benoît’s slave for three years, and now I am afraid again.”

“Have no fear, Shiva, I am not one of them. Tell me everything you can.”

He slowly gained his composure, and began to talk. “Three years ago,” he began, “I met Benoît in Bombay. I had come there from a nearby village, and I needed work badly. There had been a terrible drought, and my children had nothing to eat. Benoît promised me good wages, enough for me to send money back to my wife to care for our family. And so I travelled with him through Rajasthan three times. This is the fourth trip. He would come every year at the same time. We would take the same route, spend exactly seven days in Jaisalmer, then go on to Hyderabad in Sind, where he would leave me and continue on to Karachi, and I would return to Bombay.

“Towards the end of each stay in Jaisalmer, he would go to Mandor, where we loaded many horses with heavy bags of canvas. I did not learn what was in those bags until the third trip. This was last year, when one night there was a secret meeting with Captain Fantôme, the one who supplies the bags. Captain Fantôme came to Jaisalmer. He spoke not at all, wore a hood over his head, and merely nodded when addressed. Later some of the servants and workmen told me that Captain Fantôme was the head of the Frantzi, a strange people whose ancestors had migrated here many years ago and who owned much land. Through the centuries they grew in numbers and are now very rich. But they keep to themselves and do not mix with the Hindoos and the Jains. Many men are employed by them, but no one ever returns from there.”

“Where does Captain Fantôme stay?”

“In the large house in the center of Mandor. That is his palace.”

“Take me there,” said Holmes.

“I will go with you only as far as the walls of Mandor, for it is said that it is easy to enter Mandor, but no one ever leaves without the permission of Captain Fantôme.”

“‘Very well then, but let us hurry.’”