prompt:
Chapter: I'd not give room for an Emperor--
  I'd hold my road for a King.
  To the Triple Crown I'd not bow down--
  But this is a different thing!
  I'll not fight with the Powers of Air--
  Sentry, pass him through!
  Drawbridge let fall--He's the Lord of us all--
  The Dreamer whose dream came true!

  The Siege of the Fairies.

Two hundred miles north of Chini, on the blue shale of Ladakh, lies
Yankling Sahib, the merry-minded man, spy-glassing wrathfully across
the ridges for some sign of his pet tracker--a man from Ao-chung. But
that renegade, with a new Mannlicher rifle and two hundred cartridges,
is elsewhere, shooting musk-deer for the market, and Yankling Sahib
will learn next season how very ill he has been.

Up the valleys of Bushahr--the far-beholding eagles of the Himalayas
swerve at his new blue-and-white gored umbrella--hurries a Bengali,
once fat and well-looking, now lean and weather-worn.  He has received
the thanks of two foreigners of distinction, piloted not unskilfully to
Mashobra tunnel, which leads to the great and gay capital of India.  It
was not his fault that, blanketed by wet mists, he conveyed them past
the telegraph-station and European colony of Kotgarh.  It was not his
fault, but that of the Gods, of whom he discoursed so engagingly, that
he led them into the borders of Nahan, where the Rahah of that State
mistook them for deserting British soldiery.  Hurree Babu explained the
greatness and glory, in their own country, of his companions, till the
drowsy kinglet smiled.  He explained it to everyone who asked--many
times--aloud--variously.  He begged food, arranged accommodation,
proved a skilful leech for an injury of the groin--such a blow as one
may receive rolling down a rock-covered hillside in the dark--and in
all things indispensable.  The reason of his friendliness did him
credit.  With millions of fellow-serfs, he had learned to look upon
Russia as the great deliverer from the North.  He was a fearful man.
He had been afraid that he could not save his illustrious employers
from the anger of an excited peasantry.  He himself would just as lief
hit a holy man as not, but ...  He was deeply grateful and sincerely
rejoiced that he had done his 'little possible' towards bringing their
venture to--barring the lost baggage--a successful issue, he had
forgotten the blows; denied that any blows had been dealt that unseemly
first night under the pines.  He asked neither pension nor retaining
fee, but, if they deemed him worthy, would they write him a
testimonial?  It might be useful to him later, if others, their
friends, came over the Passes.  He begged them to remember him in their
future greatnesses, for he 'opined subtly' that he, even he, Mohendro
Lal Dutt, MA of Calcutta, had 'done the State some service'.

They gave him a certificate praising his courtesy, helpfulness, and
unerring skill as a guide.  He put it in his waist-belt and sobbed with
emotion; they had endured so many dangers together.  He led them at
high noon along crowded Simla Mall to the Alliance Bank of Simla, where
they wished to establish their identity.  Thence he vanished like a
dawn-cloud on Jakko.

Behold him, too fine-drawn to sweat, too pressed to vaunt the drugs in
his little brass-bound box, ascending Shamlegh slope, a just man made
perfect.  Watch him, all Babudom laid aside, smoking at noon on a cot,
while a woman with turquoise-studded headgear points south-easterly
across the bare grass.  Litters, she says, do not travel as fast as
single men, but his birds should now be in the Plains.  The holy man
would not stay though Lispeth pressed him.  The Babu groans heavily,
girds up his huge loins, and is off again.  He does not care to travel
after dusk; but his days' marches--there is none to enter them in a
book--would astonish folk who mock at his race.  Kindly villagers,
remembering the Dacca drug-vendor of two months ago, give him shelter
against evil spirits of the wood.  He dreams of Bengali Gods,
University text-books of education, and the Royal Society, London,
England.  Next dawn the bobbing blue-and-white umbrella goes forward.

On the edge of the Doon, Mussoorie well behind them and the Plains
spread out in golden dust before, rests a worn litter in which--all the
Hills know it--lies a sick lama who seeks a River for his healing.
Villages have almost come to blows over the honour of bearing it, for
not only has the lama given them blessings, but his disciple good
money--full one-third Sahibs' prices.  Twelve miles a day has the dooli
travelled, as the greasy, rubbed pole-ends show, and by roads that few
Sahibs use.  Over the Nilang Pass in storm when the driven snow-dust
filled every fold of the impassive lama's drapery; between the black
horns of Raieng where they heard the whistle of the wild goats through
the clouds; pitching and strained on the shale below; hard-held between
shoulder and clenched jaw when they rounded the hideous curves of the
Cut Road under Bhagirati; swinging and creaking to the steady jog-trot
of the descent into the Valley of the Waters; pressed along the steamy
levels of that locked valley; up, up and out again, to meet the roaring
gusts off Kedarnath; set down of mid-days in the dun gloom of kindly
oak-forests; passed from village to village in dawn-chill, when even
devotees may be forgiven for swearing at impatient holy men; or by
torchlight, when the least fearful think of ghosts--the dooli has
reached her last stage.  The little hill-folk sweat in the modified
heat of the lower Siwaliks, and gather round the priests for their
blessing and their wage.

'Ye have acquired merit,' says the lama.  'Merit greater than your
knowing.  And ye will return to the Hills,' he sighs.

'Surely.  The high Hills as soon as may be.'  The bearer rubs his
shoulder, drinks water, spits it out again, and readjusts his grass
sandal.  Kim--his face is drawn and tired--pays very small silver from
his belt, heaves out the food-bag, crams an oilskin packet--they are
holy writings--into his bosom, and helps the lama to his feet.  The
peace has come again into the old man's eyes, and he does not look for
the hills to fall down and crush him as he did that terrible night when
they were delayed by the flooded river.

The men pick up the dooli and swing out of sight between the scrub
clumps.

The lama raises a hand toward the rampart of the Himalayas.  'Not with
you, O blessed among all hills, fell the Arrow of Our Lord!  And never
shall I breathe your airs again!'

'But thou art ten times the stronger man in this good air,' says Kim,
for to his wearied soul appeal the well-cropped, kindly Plains. 'Here,
or hereabouts, fell the Arrow, yes.  We will go very softly, perhaps, a
koss a day, for the Search is sure.  But the bag weighs heavy.'

'Ay, our Search is sure.  I have come out of great temptation.'

It was never more than a couple of miles a day now, and Kim's shoulders
bore all the weight of it--the burden of an old man, the burden of the
heavy food-bag with the locked books, the load of the writings on his
heart, and the details of the daily routine.  He begged in the dawn,
set blankets for the lama's meditation, held the weary head on his lap
through the noonday heats, fanning away the flies till his wrists
ached, begged again in the evenings, and rubbed the lama's feet, who
rewarded him with promise of Freedom--today, tomorrow, or, at furthest,
the next day.

'Never was such a chela.  I doubt at times whether Ananda more
faithfully nursed Our Lord.  And thou art a Sahib?  When I was a man--a
long time ago--I forgot that.  Now I look upon thee often, and every
time I remember that thou art a Sahib.  It is strange.'

'Thou hast said there is neither black nor white.  Why plague me with
this talk, Holy One?  Let me rub the other foot.  It vexes me.  I am
not a Sahib.  I am thy chela, and my head is heavy on my shoulders.'

'Patience a little!  We reach Freedom together.  Then thou and I, upon
the far bank of the River, will look back upon our lives as in the
Hills we saw our days' marches laid out behind us.  Perhaps I was once
a Sahib.'

'Was never a Sahib like thee, I swear it.'

'I am certain the Keeper of the Images in the Wonder House was in past
life a very wise Abbot.  But even his spectacles do not make my eyes
see.  There fall shadows when I would look steadily.  No matter--we
know the tricks of the poor stupid carcass--shadow changing to another
shadow.  I am bound by the illusion of Time and Space.  How far came we
today in the flesh?'

'Perhaps half a koss.'  (Three quarters of a mile, and it was a weary
march.)

'Half a koss.  Ha!  I went ten thousand thousand in the spirit.  How,
we are all lapped and swathed and swaddled in these senseless things.'
He looked at his thin blue-veined hand that found the beads so heavy.
'Chela, hast thou never a wish to leave me?'

Kim thought of the oilskin packet and the books in the food-bag.  If
someone duly authorized would only take delivery of them the Great Game
might play itself for aught he then cared.  He was tired and hot in his
head, and a cough that came from the stomach worried him.

'No.'  he said almost sternly.  'I am not a dog or a snake to bite when
I have learned to love.'

'Thou art too tender towards me.'

'Not that either.  I have moved in one matter without consulting thee.
I have sent a message to the Kulu woman by that woman who gave us the
goat's milk this morn, saying that thou wast a little feeble and
wouldst need a litter.  I beat myself in my mind that I did not do it
when we entered the Doon.  We stay in this place till the litter
returns.'

'I am content.  She is a woman with a heart of gold, as thou sayest,
but a talker--something of a talker.'

'She will not weary thee.  I have looked to that also.  Holy One, my
heart is very heavy for my many carelessnesses towards thee.'  An
hysterical catch rose in his throat.  'I have walked thee too far:  I
have not picked good food always for thee; I have not considered the
heat; I have talked to people on the road and left thee alone ...  I
have--I have ...  Hai mai!  But I love thee ...  and it is all too late
...  I was a child ...  Oh, why was I not a man?  ...' Overborne by
strain, fatigue, and the weight beyond his years, Kim broke down and
sobbed at the lama's feet.

'What a to-do is here!'  said the old man gently.  'Thou hast never
stepped a hair's breadth from the Way of Obedience.  Neglect me? Child,
I have lived on thy strength as an old tree lives on the lime of a new
wall.  Day by day, since Shamlegh down, I have stolen strength from
thee.  Therefore, not through any sin of thine, art thou weakened.  It
is the Body--the silly, stupid Body--that speaks now.  Not the assured
Soul.  Be comforted!  Know at least the devils that thou fightest.
They are earth-born--children of illusion.  We will go to the woman
from Kulu.  She shall acquire merit in housing us, and specially in
tending me.  Thou shalt run free till strength returns.  I had
forgotten the stupid Body.  If there be any blame, I bear it.  But we
are too close to the Gates of Deliverance to weigh blame.  I could
praise thee, but what need?  In a little--in a very little--we shall
sit beyond all needs.'

And so he petted and comforted Kim with wise saws and grave texts on
that little-understood beast, our Body, who, being but a delusion,
insists on posing as the Soul, to the darkening of the Way, and the
immense multiplication of unnecessary devils.

'Hai!  hai!  Let us talk of the woman from Kulu.  Think you she will
ask another charm for her grandsons?  When I was a young man, a very
long time ago, I was plagued with these vapours--and some others--and I
went to an Abbot--a very holy man and a seeker after truth, though then
I knew it not.  Sit up and listen, child of my soul!  My tale was told.
Said he to me, "Chela, know this.  There are many lies in the world,
and not a few liars, but there are no liars like our bodies, except it
be the sensations of our bodies."  Considering this I was comforted,
and of his great favour he suffered me to drink tea In his presence.
Suffer me now to drink tea, for I am thirsty.'

With a laugh across his tears, Kim kissed the lama's feet, and set
about the tea-making.

'Thou leanest on me in the body, Holy One, but I lean on thee for some
other things.  Dost know it?'

'I have guessed maybe,' and the lama's eyes twinkled.  'We must change
that.'

So, when with scufflings and scrapings and a hot air of importance,
paddled up nothing less than the Sahiba's pet palanquin sent twenty
miles, with that same grizzled old Oorya servant in charge, and when
they reached the disorderly order of the long white rambling house
behind Saharunpore, the lama took his own measures.

Said the Sahiba cheerily from an upper window, after compliments: 'What
is the good of an old woman's advice to an old man?  I told thee--I
told thee, Holy One, to keep an eye upon the chela.  How didst thou do
it?  Never answer me!  I know.  He has been running among the women.
Look at his eyes--hollow and sunk--and the Betraying Line from the nose
down!  He has been sifted out!  Fie!  Fie!  And a priest, too!'

Kim looked up, over-weary to smile, shaking his head in denial.

'Do not jest,' said the lama.  'That time is done.  We are here upon
great matters.  A sickness of soul took me in the Hills, and him a
sickness of the body.  Since then I have lived upon his
strength--eating him.'

'Children together--young and old,' she sniffed, but forbore to make
any new jokes.  'May this present hospitality restore ye!  Hold awhile
and I will come to gossip of the high good Hills.'

At evening time--her son-in-law was returned, so she did not need to go
on inspection round the farm--she won to the meat of the matter,
explained low-voicedly by the lama.  The two old heads nodded wisely
together.  Kim had reeled to a room with a cot in it, and was dozing
soddenly.  The lama had forbidden him to set blankets or get food.

'I know--I know.  Who but I?' she cackled.  'We who go down to the
burning-ghats clutch at the hands of those coming up from the River of
Life with full water-jars--yes, brimming water-jars.  I did the boy
wrong.  He lent thee his strength?  It is true that the old eat the
young daily.  Stands now we must restore him.'

'Thou hast many times acquired merit--'

'My merit.  What is it?  Old bag of bones making curries for men who do
not ask "Who cooked this?"  Now if it were stored up for my grandson--'

'He that had the belly-pain?'

'To think the Holy One remembers that!  I must tell his mother.  It is
most singular honour!  "He that had the belly-pain"--straightway the
Holy One remembered.  She will be proud.'

'My chela is to me as is a son to the unenlightened.'

'Say grandson, rather.  Mothers have not the wisdom of our years.  If a
child cries they say the heavens are falling.  Now a grandmother is far
enough separated from the pain of bearing and the pleasure of giving
the breast to consider whether a cry is wickedness pure or the wind.
And since thou speakest once again of wind, when last the Holy One was
here, maybe I offended in pressing for charms.'

'Sister,' said the lama, using that form of address a Buddhist monk may
sometimes employ towards a nun, 'if charms comfort thee--'

'They are better than ten thousand doctors.'

'I say, if they comfort thee, I who was Abbot of Such-zen, will make as
many as thou mayest desire.  I have never seen thy face--'

'That even the monkeys who steal our loquats count for again.  Hee!
hee!'

'But as he who sleeps there said,'--he nodded at the shut door of the
guest-chamber across the forecourt--'thou hast a heart of gold... And
he is in the spirit my very "grandson" to me.'

'Good!  I am the Holy One's cow.'  This was pure Hinduism, but the lama
never heeded.  'I am old.  I have borne sons in the body.  Oh, once I
could please men!  Now I can cure them.'  He heard her armlets tinkle
as though she bared arms for action.  'I will take over the boy and
dose him, and stuff him, and make him all whole.  Hai!  hai! We old
people know something yet.'

Wherefore when Kim, aching in every bone, opened his eyes, and would go
to the cook-house to get his master's food, he found strong coercion
about him, and a veiled old figure at the door, flanked by the grizzled
manservant, who told him very precisely the things that he was on no
account to do.

'Thou must have?  Thou shalt have nothing.  What?  A locked box in
which to keep holy books?  Oh, that is another matter.  Heavens forbid
I should come between a priest and his prayers!  It shall be brought,
and thou shalt keep the key.'

They pushed the coffer under his cot, and Kim shut away Mahbub's
pistol, the oilskin packet of letters, and the locked books and
diaries, with a groan of relief.  For some absurd reason their weight
on his shoulders was nothing to their weight on his poor mind.  His
neck ached under it of nights.

'Thine is a sickness uncommon in youth these days:  since young folk
have given up tending their betters.  The remedy is sleep, and certain
drugs,' said the Sahiba; and he was glad to give himself up to the
blankness that half menaced and half soothed him.

She brewed drinks, in some mysterious Asiatic equivalent to the
still-room--drenches that smelt pestilently and tasted worse.  She
stood over Kim till they went down, and inquired exhaustively after
they had come up.  She laid a taboo upon the forecourt, and enforced it
by means of an armed man.  It is true he was seventy odd, that his
scabbarded sword ceased at the hilt; but he represented the authority
of the Sahiba, and loaded wains, chattering servants, calves, dogs,
hens, and the like, fetched a wide compass by those parts.  Best of
all, when the body was cleared, she cut out from the mass of poor
relations that crowded the back of the buildings--house-hold dogs, we
name them--a cousin's widow, skilled in what Europeans, who know
nothing about it, call massage.  And the two of them, laying him east
and west, that the mysterious earth-currents which thrill the clay of
our bodies might help and not hinder, took him to pieces all one long
afternoon--bone by bone, muscle by muscle, ligament by ligament, and
lastly, nerve by nerve.  Kneaded to irresponsible pulp, half hypnotized
by the perpetual flick and readjustment of the uneasy chudders that
veiled their eyes, Kim slid ten thousand miles into slumber--thirty-six
hours of it--sleep that soaked like rain after drought.

Then she fed him, and the house spun to her clamour.  She caused fowls
to be slain; she sent for vegetables, and the sober, slow-thinking
gardener, nigh as old as she, sweated for it; she took spices, and
milk, and onion, with little fish from the brooks--anon limes for
sherbets, fat quails from the pits, then chicken-livers upon a skewer,
with sliced ginger between.

'I have seen something of this world,' she said over the crowded trays,
'and there are but two sorts of women in it--those who take the
strength out of a man and those who put it back.  Once I was that one,
and now I am this.  Nay--do not play the priestling with me. Mine was
but a jest.  If it does not hold good now, it will when thou takest the
road again.  Cousin,'--this to the poor relation, never wearied of
extolling her patroness's charity--'he is getting a bloom on the skin
of a new-curried horse.  Our work is like polishing jewels to be thrown
to a dance-girl--eh?'

Kim sat up and smiled.  The terrible weakness had dropped from him like
an old shoe.  His tongue itched for free speech again, and but a week
back the lightest word clogged it like ashes.  The pain in his neck (he
must have caught it from the lama) had gone with the heavy dengue-aches
and the evil taste in the mouth.  The two old women, a little, but not
much, more careful about their veils now, clucked as merrily as the
hens that had entered pecking through the open door.

'Where is my Holy One?'  he demanded.

'Hear him!  Thy Holy One is well,' she snapped viciously.  'Though that
is none of his merit.  Knew I a charm to make him wise, I'd sell my
jewels and buy it.  To refuse good food that I cooked myself--and go
roving into the fields for two nights on an empty belly--and to tumble
into a brook at the end of it--call you that holiness?  Then, when he
has nearly broken what thou hast left of my heart with anxiety, he
tells me that he has acquired merit.  Oh, how like are all men!  No,
that was not it--he tells me that he is freed from all sin.  I could
have told him that before he wetted himself all over.  He is well
now--this happened a week ago--but burn me such holiness!  A babe of
three would do better.  Do not fret thyself for the Holy One.  He keeps
both eyes on thee when he is not wading our brooks.'

'I do not remember to have seen him.  I remember that the days and
nights passed like bars of white and black, opening and shutting.  I
was not sick:  I was but tired.'

'A lethargy that comes by right some few score years later.  But it is
done now.'

'Maharanee,' Kim began, but led by the look in her eye, changed it to
the title of plain love--'Mother, I owe my life to thee.  How shall I
make thanks?  Ten thousand blessings upon thy house and--'

'The house be unblessed!'  (It is impossible to give exactly the old
lady's word.) 'Thank the Gods as a priest if thou wilt, but thank me,
if thou carest, as a son.  Heavens above!  Have I shifted thee and
lifted thee and slapped and twisted thy ten toes to find texts flung at
my head?  Somewhere a mother must have borne thee to break her heart.
What used thou to her--son?'

'I had no mother, my mother,' said Kim.  'She died, they tell me, when
I was young.'

'Hai mai!  Then none can say I have robbed her of any right if--when
thou takest the road again and this house is but one of a thousand used
for shelter and forgotten, after an easy-flung blessing.  No matter.  I
need no blessings, but--but--' She stamped her foot at the poor
relation.  'Take up the trays to the house.  What is the good of stale
food in the room, O woman of ill-omen?'

'I ha--have borne a son in my time too, but he died,' whimpered the
bowed sister-figure behind the chudder.  'Thou knowest he died!  I only
waited for the order to take away the tray.'

'It is I that am the woman of ill-omen,' cried the old lady penitently.
'We that go down to the chattris [the big umbrellas above the
burning-ghats where the priests take their last dues] clutch hard at
the bearers of the chattis [water-jars--young folk full of the pride of
life, she meant; but the pun is clumsy].  When one cannot dance in the
festival one must e'en look out of the window, and grandmothering takes
all a woman's time.  Thy master gives me all the charms I now desire
for my daughter's eldest, by reason--is it?--that he is wholly free
from sin.  The hakim is brought very low these days.  He goes about
poisoning my servants for lack of their betters.'

'What hakim, mother?'

'That very Dacca man who gave me the pill which rent me in three
pieces.  He cast up like a strayed camel a week ago, vowing that he and
thou had been blood-brothers together up Kulu-way, and feigning great
anxiety for thy health.  He was very thin and hungry, so I gave orders
to have him stuffed too--him and his anxiety!'

'I would see him if he is here.'

'He eats five times a day, and lances boils for my hinds to save
himself from an apoplexy.  He is so full of anxiety for thy health that
he sticks to the cook-house door and stays himself with scraps. He will
keep.  We shall never get rid of him.'

'Send him here, mother'--the twinkle returned to Kim's eye for a
flash--'and I will try.'

'I'll send him, but to chase him off is an ill turn.  At least he had
the sense to fish the Holy One out of the brook; thus, as the Holy One
did not say, acquiring merit.'

'He is a very wise hakim.  Send him, mother.'

'Priest praising priest?  A miracle!  If he is any friend of thine (ye
squabbled at your last meeting) I'll hale him here with horse-ropes
and--and give him a caste-dinner afterwards, my son ...  Get up and see
the world!  This lying abed is the mother of seventy devils ... my son!
my son!'

She trotted forth to raise a typhoon off the cook-house, and almost on
her shadow rolled in the Babu, robed as to the shoulders like a Roman
emperor, jowled like Titus, bare-headed, with new patent-leather shoes,
in highest condition of fat, exuding joy and salutations.

'By Jove, Mister O'Hara, but I are jolly-glad to see you.  I will
kindly shut the door.  It is a pity you are sick.  Are you very sick?'

'The papers--the papers from the kilta.  The maps and the murasla!' He
held out the key impatiently; for the present need on his soul was to
get rid of the loot.

'You are quite right.  That is correct Departmental view to take.  You
have got everything?'

'All that was handwritten in the kilta I took.  The rest I threw down
the hill.'  He could hear the key's grate in the lock, the sticky pull
of the slow-rending oilskin, and a quick shuffling of papers. He had
been annoyed out of all reason by the knowledge that they lay below him
through the sick idle days--a burden incommunicable.  For that reason
the blood tingled through his body, when Hurree, skipping
elephantinely, shook hands again.

'This is fine!  This is finest!  Mister O'Hara!  you have--ha!  ha!
swiped the whole bag of tricks--locks, stocks, and barrels.  They told
me it was eight months' work gone up the spouts!  By Jove, how they
beat me!  ...  Look, here is the letter from Hilas!'  He intoned a line
or two of Court Persian, which is the language of authorized and
unauthorized diplomacy.  'Mister Rajah Sahib has just about put his
foot in the holes.  He will have to explain offeecially how the
deuce-an'-all he is writing love-letters to the Czar.  And they are
very clever maps ...  and there is three or four Prime Ministers of
these parts implicated by the correspondence.  By Gad, sar!  The
British Government will change the succession in Hilas and Bunar, and
nominate new heirs to the throne.  "Trea-son most base" ...  but you do
not understand?  Eh?'

'Are they in thy hands?'  said Kim.  It was all he cared for.

'Just you jolly-well bet yourself they are.'  He stowed the entire
trove about his body, as only Orientals can.  'They are going up to the
office, too.  The old lady thinks I am permanent fixture here, but I
shall go away with these straight off--immediately.  Mr Lurgan will be
proud man.  You are offeecially subordinate to me, but I shall embody
your name in my verbal report.  It is a pity we are not allowed written
reports.  We Bengalis excel in thee exact science.' He tossed back the
key and showed the box empty.

'Good.  That is good.  I was very tired.  My Holy One was sick, too.
And did he fall into--'

'Oah yess.  I am his good friend, I tell you.  He was behaving very
strange when I came down after you, and I thought perhaps he might have
the papers.  I followed him on his meditations, and to discuss
ethnological points also.  You see, I am verree small person here
nowadays, in comparison with all his charms.  By Jove, O'Hara, do you
know, he is afflicted with infirmity of fits.  Yess, I tell you.
Cataleptic, too, if not also epileptic.  I found him in such a state
under a tree in articulo mortem, and he jumped up and walked into a
brook and he was nearly drowned but for me.  I pulled him out.'

'Because I was not there!'  said Kim.  'He might have died.'

'Yes, he might have died, but he is dry now, and asserts he has
undergone transfiguration.'  The Babu tapped his forehead knowingly. 'I
took notes of his statements for Royal Society--in posse.  You must
make haste and be quite well and come back to Simla, and I will tell
you all my tale at Lurgan's.  It was splendid.  The bottoms of their
trousers were quite torn, and old Nahan Rajah, he thought they were
European soldiers deserting.'

'Oh, the Russians?  How long were they with thee?'

'One was a Frenchman.  Oh, days and days and days!  Now all the
hill-people believe all Russians are all beggars.  By Jove! they had
not one dam'-thing that I did not get them.  And I told the common
people--oah, such tales and anecdotes!--I will tell you at old Lurgan's
when you come up.  We will have--ah--a night out!  It is feather in
both our caps!  Yess, and they gave me a certificate.  That is creaming
joke.  You should have seen them at the Alliance Bank identifying
themselves!  And thank Almighty God you got their papers so well!  You
do not laugh verree much, but you shall laugh when you are well.  Now I
will go straight to the railway and get out.  You shall have all sorts
of credits for your game.  When do you come along?  We are very proud
of you though you gave us great frights. And especially Mahbub.'

'Ay, Mahbub.  And where is he?'

'Selling horses in this vi-cinity, of course.'

'Here!  Why?  Speak slowly.  There is a thickness in my head still.'

The Babu looked shyly down his nose.  'Well, you see, I am fearful man,
and I do not like responsibility.  You were sick, you see, and I did
not know where deuce-an'-all the papers were, and if so, how many.  So
when I had come down here I slipped in private wire to Mahbub--he was
at Meerut for races--and I tell him how case stands.  He comes up with
his men and he consorts with the lama, and then he calls me a fool, and
is very rude--'

'But wherefore--wherefore?'

'That is what I ask.  I only suggest that if anyone steals the papers I
should like some good strong, brave men to rob them back again. You
see, they are vitally important, and Mahbub Ali he did not know where
you were.'

'Mahbub Ali to rob the Sahiba's house?  Thou art mad, Babu,' said Kim
with indignation.

'I wanted the papers.  Suppose she had stole them?  It was only
practical suggestion, I think.  You are not pleased, eh?'

A native proverb--unquotable--showed the blackness of Kim's disapproval.

'Well,'--Hurree shrugged his shoulders--'there is no accounting for
thee taste.  Mahbub was angry too.  He has sold horses all about here,
and he says old lady is pukka [thorough] old lady and would not
condescend to such ungentlemanly things.  I do not care.  I have got
the papers, and I was very glad of moral support from Mahbub.  I tell
you, I am fearful man, but, somehow or other, the more fearful I am the
more dam'-tight places I get into.  So I was glad you came with me to
Chini, and I am glad Mahbub was close by.  The old lady she is
sometimes very rude to me and my beautiful pills.'

'Allah be merciful!'  said Kim on his elbow, rejoicing.  'What a beast
of wonder is a Babu!  And that man walked alone--if he did walk--with
robbed and angry foreigners!'

'Oah, thatt was nothing, after they had done beating me; but if I lost
the papers it was pretty-jolly serious.  Mahbub he nearly beat me too,
and he went and consorted with the lama no end.  I shall stick to
ethnological investigations henceforwards.  Now good-bye, Mister
O'Hara.  I can catch 4.25 p.m.  to Umballa if I am quick.  It will be
good times when we all tell thee tale up at Mr Lurgan's.  I shall
report you offeecially better.  Good-bye, my dear fallow, and when next
you are under thee emotions please do not use the Mohammedan terms with
the Tibetan dress.'

He shook hands twice--a Babu to his boot-heels--and opened the door.
With the fall of the sunlight upon his still triumphant face he
returned to the humble Dacca quack.

'He robbed them,' thought Kim, forgetting his own share in the game.
'He tricked them.  He lied to them like a Bengali.  They give him a
chit [a testimonial].  He makes them a mock at the risk of his life--I
never would have gone down to them after the pistol-shots--and then he
says he is a fearful man ...  And he is a fearful man.  I must get into
the world again.'

At first his legs bent like bad pipe-stems, and the flood and rush of
the sunlit air dazzled him.  He squatted by the white wall, the mind
rummaging among the incidents of the long dooli journey, the lama's
weaknesses, and, now that the stimulus of talk was removed, his own
self-pity, of which, like the sick, he had great store.  The unnerved
brain edged away from all the outside, as a raw horse, once rowelled,
sidles from the spur.  It was enough, amply enough, that the spoil of
the kilta was away--off his hands--out of his possession.  He tried to
think of the lama--to wonder why he had tumbled into a brook--but the
bigness of the world, seen between the forecourt gates, swept linked
thought aside.  Then he looked upon the trees and the broad fields,
with the thatched huts hidden among crops--looked with strange eyes
unable to take up the size and proportion and use of things--stared for
a still half-hour.  All that while he felt, though he could not put it
into words, that his soul was out of gear with its surroundings--a
cog-wheel unconnected with any machinery, just like the idle cog-wheel
of a cheap Beheea sugar-crusher laid by in a corner.  The breezes
fanned over him, the parrots shrieked at him, the noises of the
populated house behind--squabbles, orders, and reproofs--hit on dead
ears.

'I am Kim.  I am Kim.  And what is Kim?'  His soul repeated it again
and again.

He did not want to cry--had never felt less like crying in his
life--but of a sudden easy, stupid tears trickled down his nose, and
with an almost audible click he felt the wheels of his being lock up
anew on the world without.  Things that rode meaningless on the eyeball
an instant before slid into proper proportion.  Roads were meant to be
walked upon, houses to be lived in, cattle to be driven, fields to be
tilled, and men and women to be talked to.  They were all real and
true--solidly planted upon the feet--perfectly comprehensible--clay of
his clay, neither more nor less.  He shook himself like a dog with a
flea in his ear, and rambled out of the gate.  Said the Sahiba, to whom
watchful eyes reported this move: 'Let him go.  I have done my share.
Mother Earth must do the rest. When the Holy One comes back from
meditation, tell him.'

There stood an empty bullock-cart on a little knoll half a mile away,
with a young banyan tree behind--a look-out, as it were, above some
new-ploughed levels; and his eyelids, bathed in soft air, grew heavy as
he neared it.  The ground was good clean dust--no new herbage that,
living, is half-way to death already, but the hopeful dust that holds
the seeds of all life.  He felt it between his toes, patted it with his
palms, and joint by joint, sighing luxuriously, laid him down full
length along in the shadow of the wooden-pinned cart.  And Mother Earth
was as faithful as the Sahiba.  She breathed through him to restore the
poise he had lost lying so long on a cot cut off from her good
currents.  His head lay powerless upon her breast, and his opened hands
surrendered to her strength.  The many-rooted tree above him, and even
the dead manhandled wood beside, knew what he sought, as he himself did
not know.  Hour upon hour he lay deeper than sleep.

Towards evening, when the dust of returning kine made all the horizons
smoke, came the lama and Mahbub Ali, both afoot, walking cautiously,
for the house had told them where he had gone.

'Allah!  What a fool's trick to play in open country!'  muttered the
horse-dealer.  'He could be shot a hundred times--but this is not the
Border.'

'And,' said the lama, repeating a many-times-told tale, 'never was such
a chela.  Temperate, kindly, wise, of ungrudging disposition, a merry
heart upon the road, never forgetting, learned, truthful, courteous.
Great is his reward!'

'I know the boy--as I have said.'

'And he was all those things?'

'Some of them--but I have not yet found a Red Hat's charm for making
him overly truthful.  He has certainly been well nursed.'

'The Sahiba is a heart of gold,' said the lama earnestly.  'She looks
upon him as her son.'

'Hmph!  Half Hind seems that way disposed.  I only wished to see that
the boy had come to no harm and was a free agent.  As thou knowest, he
and I were old friends in the first days of your pilgrimage together.'

'That is a bond between us.'  The lama sat down.  'We are at the end of
the pilgrimage.'

'No thanks to thee thine was not cut off for good and all a week back.
I heard what the Sahiba said to thee when we bore thee up on the cot.'
Mahbub laughed, and tugged his newly dyed beard.

'I was meditating upon other matters that tide.  It was the hakim from
Dacca broke my meditations.'

'Otherwise'--this was in Pushtu for decency's sake--'thou wouldst have
ended thy meditations upon the sultry side of Hell--being an unbeliever
and an idolater for all thy child's simplicity.  But now, Red Hat, what
is to be done?'

'This very night,'--the words came slowly, vibrating with
triumph--'this very night he will be as free as I am from all taint of
sin--assured as I am, when he quits this body, of Freedom from the
Wheel of Things.  I have a sign'--he laid his hand above the torn chart
in his bosom--'that my time is short; but I shall have safeguarded him
throughout the years.  Remember, I have reached Knowledge, as I told
thee only three nights back.'

'It must be true, as the Tirah priest said when I stole his cousin's
wife, that I am a Sufi [a free-thinker]; for here I sit,' said Mahbub
to himself, 'drinking in blasphemy unthinkable ...  I remember the
tale.  On that, then, he goes to Fannatu l'Adn [the Gardens of Eden].
But how?  Wilt thou slay him or drown him in that wonderful river from
which the Babu dragged thee?'

'I was dragged from no river,' said the lama simply.  'Thou hast
forgotten what befell.  I found it by Knowledge.'

'Oh, ay.  True,' stammered Mahbub, divided between high indignation and
enormous mirth.  'I had forgotten the exact run of what happened. Thou
didst find it knowingly.'

'And to say that I would take life is--not a sin, but a madness simple.
My chela aided me to the River.  It is his right to be cleansed from
sin--with me.'

'Ay, he needs cleansing.  But afterwards, old man--afterwards?'

'What matter under all the Heavens?  He is sure of
Nibban--enlightened--as I am.'

'Well said.  I had a fear he might mount Mohammed's Horse and fly away.'

'Nay--he must go forth as a teacher.'

'Aha!  Now I see!  That is the right gait for the colt.  Certainly he
must go forth as a teacher.  He is somewhat urgently needed as a scribe
by the State, for instance.'

'To that end he was prepared.  I acquired merit in that I gave alms for
his sake.  A good deed does not die.  He aided me in my Search.  I
aided him in his.  Just is the Wheel, O horse-seller from the North.
Let him be a teacher; let him be a scribe--what matter?  He will have
attained Freedom at the end.  The rest is illusion.'

'What matter?  When I must have him with me beyond Balkh in six months!
I come up with ten lame horses and three strong-backed men--thanks to
that chicken of a Babu--to break a sick boy by force out of an old
trot's house.  It seems that I stand by while a young Sahib is hoisted
into Allah knows what of an idolater's Heaven by means of old Red Hat.
And I am reckoned something of a player of the Game myself!  But the
madman is fond of the boy; and I must be very reasonably mad too.'

'What is the prayer?' said the lama, as the rough Pushtu rumbled into
the red beard.

'No matter at all; but now I understand that the boy, sure of Paradise,
can yet enter Government service, my mind is easier.  I must get to my
horses.  It grows dark.  Do not wake him.  I have no wish to hear him
call thee master.'

'But he is my disciple.  What else?'

'He has told me.'  Mahbub choked down his touch of spleen and rose
laughing.  'I am not altogether of thy faith, Red Hat--if so small a
matter concern thee.'

'It is nothing,' said the lama.

'I thought not.  Therefore it will not move thee, sinless, new-washed
and three parts drowned to boot, when I call thee a good man--a very
good man.  We have talked together some four or five evenings now, and
for all I am a horse-coper I can still, as the saying is, see holiness
beyond the legs of a horse.  Yea, can see, too, how our Friend of all
the World put his hand in thine at the first.  Use him well, and suffer
him to return to the world as a teacher, when thou hast--bathed his
legs, if that be the proper medicine for the colt.'

'Why not follow the Way thyself, and so accompany the boy?'

Mahbub stared stupefied at the magnificent insolence of the demand,
which across the Border he would have paid with more than a blow. Then
the humour of it touched his worldly soul.

'Softly--softly--one foot at a time, as the lame gelding went over the
Umballa jumps.  I may come to Paradise later--I have workings that
way--great motions--and I owe them to thy simplicity.  Thou hast never
lied?'

'What need?'

'O Allah, hear him!  "What need" in this Thy world!  Nor ever harmed a
man?'

'Once--with a pencase--before I was wise.'

'So?  I think the better of thee.  Thy teachings are good.  Thou hast
turned one man that I know from the path of strife.'  He laughed
immensely.  'He came here open-minded to commit a dacoity [a
house-robbery with violence].  Yes, to cut, rob, kill, and carry off
what he desired.'

'A great foolishness!'

'Oh!  black shame too.  So he thought after he had seen thee--and a few
others, male and female.  So he abandoned it; and now he goes to beat a
big fat Babu man.'

'I do not understand.'

'Allah forbid it!  Some men are strong in knowledge, Red Hat.  Thy
strength is stronger still.  Keep it--I think thou wilt.  If the boy be
not a good servant, pull his ears off.'

With a hitch of his broad Bokhariot belt the Pathan swaggered off into
the gloaming, and the lama came down from his clouds so far as to look
at the broad back.

'That person lacks courtesy, and is deceived by the shadow of
appearances.  But he spoke well of my chela, who now enters upon his
reward.  Let me make the prayer!  ...  Wake, O fortunate above all born
of women.  Wake!  It is found!'

Kim came up from those deep wells, and the lama attended his yawning
pleasure; duly snapping fingers to head off evil spirits.

'I have slept a hundred years.  Where--?  Holy One, hast thou been here
long?  I went out to look for thee, but'--he laughed drowsily--'I slept
by the way.  I am all well now.  Hast thou eaten?  Let us go to the
house.  It is many days since I tended thee.  And the Sahiba fed thee
well?  Who shampooed thy legs?  What of the weaknesses--the belly and
the neck, and the beating in the ears?'

'Gone--all gone.  Dost thou not know?'

'I know nothing, but that I have not seen thee in a monkey's age. Know
what?'

'Strange the knowledge did not reach out to thee, when all my thoughts
were theeward.'

'I cannot see the face, but the voice is like a gong.  Has the Sahiba
made a young man of thee by her cookery?'

He peered at the cross-legged figure, outlined jet-black against the
lemon-coloured drift of light.  So does the stone Bodhisat sit who
looks down upon the patent self-registering turnstiles of the Lahore
Museum.

The lama held his peace.  Except for the click of the rosary and a
faint clop-clop of Mahbub's retreating feet, the soft, smoky silence of
evening in India wrapped them close.

'Hear me!  I bring news.'

'But let us--'

Out shot the long yellow hand compelling silence.  Kim tucked his feet
under his robe-edge obediently.

'Hear me!  I bring news!  The Search is finished.  Comes now the
Reward... Thus.  When we were among the Hills, I lived on thy strength
till the young branch bowed and nigh broke.  When we came out of the
Hills, I was troubled for thee and for other matters which I held in my
heart.  The boat of my soul lacked direction; I could not see into the
Cause of Things.  So I gave thee over to the virtuous woman altogether.
I took no food.  I drank no water.  Still I saw not the Way.  They
pressed food upon me and cried at my shut door.  So I removed myself to
a hollow under a tree.  I took no food.  I took no water.  I sat in
meditation two days and two nights, abstracting my mind; inbreathing
and outbreathing in the required manner ...  Upon the second night--so
great was my reward--the wise Soul loosed itself from the silly Body
and went free.  This I have never before attained, though I have stood
on the threshold of it.  Consider, for it is a marvel!'

'A marvel indeed.  Two days and two nights without food!  Where was the
Sahiba?'  said Kim under his breath.

'Yea, my Soul went free, and, wheeling like an eagle, saw indeed that
there was no Teshoo Lama nor any other soul.  As a drop draws to water,
so my Soul drew near to the Great Soul which is beyond all things.  At
that point, exalted in contemplation, I saw all Hind, from Ceylon in
the sea to the Hills, and my own Painted Rocks at Such-zen; I saw every
camp and village, to the least, where we have ever rested.  I saw them
at one time and in one place; for they were within the Soul.  By this I
knew the Soul had passed beyond the illusion of Time and Space and of
Things.  By this I knew that I was free.  I saw thee lying in thy cot,
and I saw thee falling downhill under the idolater--at one time, in one
place, in my Soul, which, as I say, had touched the Great Soul.  Also I
saw the stupid body of Teshoo Lama lying down, and the hakim from Dacca
kneeled beside, shouting in its ear.  Then my Soul was all alone, and I
saw nothing, for I was all things, having reached the Great Soul.  And
I meditated a thousand thousand years, passionless, well aware of the
Causes of all Things.  Then a voice cried:  "What shall come to the boy
if thou art dead?"  and I was shaken back and forth in myself with pity
for thee; and I said:  "I will return to my chela, lest he miss the
Way." Upon this my Soul, which is the Soul of Teshoo Lama, withdrew
itself from the Great Soul with strivings and yearnings and retchings
and agonies not to be told.  As the egg from the fish, as the fish from
the water, as the water from the cloud, as the cloud from the thick
air, so put forth, so leaped out, so drew away, so fumed up the Soul of
Teshoo Lama from the Great Soul.  Then a voice cried:  "The River! Take
heed to the River!" and I looked down upon all the world, which was as
I had seen it before--one in time, one in place--and I saw plainly the
River of the Arrow at my feet.  At that hour my Soul was hampered by
some evil or other whereof I was not wholly cleansed, and it lay upon
my arms and coiled round my waist; but I put it aside, and I cast forth
as an eagle in my flight for the very place of the River.  I pushed
aside world upon world for thy sake.  I saw the River below me--the
River of the Arrow--and, descending, the waters of it closed over me;
and behold I was again in the body of Teshoo Lama, but free from sin,
and the hakim from Decca bore up my head in the waters of the River.
It is here!  It is behind the mango-tope here--even here!'

'Allah kerim!  Oh, well that the Babu was by!  Wast thou very wet?'

'Why should I regard?  I remember the hakim was concerned for the body
of Teshoo Lama.  He haled it out of the holy water in his hands, and
there came afterwards thy horse-seller from the North with a cot and
men, and they put the body on the cot and bore it up to the Sahiba's
house.'

'What said the Sahiba?'

'I was meditating in that body, and did not hear.  So thus the Search
is ended.  For the merit that I have acquired, the River of the Arrow
is here.  It broke forth at our feet, as I have said.  I have found it.
Son of my Soul, I have wrenched my Soul back from the Threshold of
Freedom to free thee from all sin--as I am free, and sinless! Just is
the Wheel!  Certain is our deliverance!  Come!'

He crossed his hands on his lap and smiled, as a man may who has won
salvation for himself and his beloved.

Q: Can you write an appropriate summary of the above paragraphs?
A:

completion: The Babu leads the two Europeans on a long road back to Simla, all the while claiming that he is a loyal servant of Russia. They are taken in by all of his fine talk, and never suspect him of making their road harder than it has to be. Meanwhile, Kim and the lama travel down and out of the mountains. At every village along the way, people know that there is a sick lama who needs to be carried in a litter south. They all line up for the opportunity, since he is a holy man . Once they leave the hills they begin to walk again as they look for the River. As the lama and Kim travel, the lama asks if Kim has ever wanted to leave him; Kim says no, absolutely not. Kim has written to the Kulu woman asking that she send a litter to carry the lama--he is worried that the lama is getting weaker with all of this walking. Kim also appears to be getting sick, and he is "tired and hot in his head, and a cough that came from his stomach worried him" . Kim suddenly freaks out . He blurts out to the lama that he made the lama walk too much, that he hasn't fed him well... Kim starts crying at the lama's feet. The lama asks Kim why he is making all this fuss--Kim has never been anything other than loyal and loving, and the only problem here is the Body, which is weak and frail. The lama comforts Kim, who eventually calms down. The Kulu woman arrives, and the lama explains that he has been struggling with a "sickness of soul," while Kim has had a "sickness of body" . The Kulu woman promises to look after them both. The lama offers to make her all the charms she wants for her grandsons, because she is helping Kim and Kim is like a grandson to the lama. Kim lies in bed while the Kulu woman nurses him. The locked box full of the Russian agents' papers sits under his bed. Kim sleeps for thirty-six hours, totally exhausted from all of the hard travel and from lugging the locked box around the Himalayas with him. When he wakes up he feels great again, and he immediately asks where the lama is. The Kulu woman says that he's fine--wandering around being a pain, but fine. The Kulu woman also tells Kim to consider her as a mother, since his own mother died when he was young. She mentions that the hakim is here ; Kim asks her to bring him to him. Once Kim sees the Babu, he tells him that he's got all of the Russian agents's papers. Apparently, the Babu has brought Mahbub Ali into town. The Babu leaves to take the train to Umballa with all of his vital information. And as Kim looks out at the world, he suddenly realizes his place in it. It is Kim's jobs to travel the roads and to meet people--that's what he was born for, and that's what he'll do as part of the Great Game. The lama and Mahbub Ali talk about Kim. The lama has found his River, and he plans to take Kim to bathe in it; he has found Enlightenment, as has Kim, and now Kim must be a great teacher. Mahbub Ali congratulates the lama on his goodness and on his virtue. But Mahbub Ali has no intention of following in his path. He walks off into the dark, and the lama goes to find Kim. The lama tells Kim the news: after two days and two nights without food and water, the lama had a great vision. He saw all the world, and he joined the Great Soul of the universe. But as he was looking down, a voice said to him, what will happen to Kim if you disappear? And so the lama left the Great Soul. A voice told him where to find the River of the Arrow, and the lama plunged into it, only to have the hakim pull him out. And so the lama has returned from the "Threshold of Freedom" to bring Kim to his salvation.


prompt:
Chapter: "I am inclined to think--" said I.

"I should do so," Sherlock Holmes remarked impatiently.

I believe that I am one of the most long-suffering of mortals; but I'll
admit that I was annoyed at the sardonic interruption. "Really, Holmes,"
said I severely, "you are a little trying at times."

He was too much absorbed with his own thoughts to give any immediate
answer to my remonstrance. He leaned upon his hand, with his untasted
breakfast before him, and he stared at the slip of paper which he had
just drawn from its envelope. Then he took the envelope itself, held it
up to the light, and very carefully studied both the exterior and the
flap.

"It is Porlock's writing," said he thoughtfully. "I can hardly doubt
that it is Porlock's writing, though I have seen it only twice before.
The Greek e with the peculiar top flourish is distinctive. But if it is
Porlock, then it must be something of the very first importance."

He was speaking to himself rather than to me; but my vexation
disappeared in the interest which the words awakened.

"Who then is Porlock?" I asked.

"Porlock, Watson, is a nom-de-plume, a mere identification mark; but
behind it lies a shifty and evasive personality. In a former letter he
frankly informed me that the name was not his own, and defied me ever
to trace him among the teeming millions of this great city. Porlock is
important, not for himself, but for the great man with whom he is in
touch. Picture to yourself the pilot fish with the shark, the jackal
with the lion--anything that is insignificant in companionship with what
is formidable: not only formidable, Watson, but sinister--in the highest
degree sinister. That is where he comes within my purview. You have
heard me speak of Professor Moriarty?"

"The famous scientific criminal, as famous among crooks as--"

"My blushes, Watson!" Holmes murmured in a deprecating voice.

"I was about to say, as he is unknown to the public."

"A touch! A distinct touch!" cried Holmes. "You are developing a certain
unexpected vein of pawky humour, Watson, against which I must learn to
guard myself. But in calling Moriarty a criminal you are uttering libel
in the eyes of the law--and there lie the glory and the wonder of it!
The greatest schemer of all time, the organizer of every deviltry, the
controlling brain of the underworld, a brain which might have made or
marred the destiny of nations--that's the man! But so aloof is he
from general suspicion, so immune from criticism, so admirable in his
management and self-effacement, that for those very words that you have
uttered he could hale you to a court and emerge with your year's pension
as a solatium for his wounded character. Is he not the celebrated author
of The Dynamics of an Asteroid, a book which ascends to such rarefied
heights of pure mathematics that it is said that there was no man in the
scientific press capable of criticizing it? Is this a man to traduce?
Foul-mouthed doctor and slandered professor--such would be your
respective roles! That's genius, Watson. But if I am spared by lesser
men, our day will surely come."

"May I be there to see!" I exclaimed devoutly. "But you were speaking of
this man Porlock."

"Ah, yes--the so-called Porlock is a link in the chain some little way
from its great attachment. Porlock is not quite a sound link--between
ourselves. He is the only flaw in that chain so far as I have been able
to test it."

"But no chain is stronger than its weakest link."

"Exactly, my dear Watson! Hence the extreme importance of Porlock. Led
on by some rudimentary aspirations towards right, and encouraged by the
judicious stimulation of an occasional ten-pound note sent to him by
devious methods, he has once or twice given me advance information which
has been of value--that highest value which anticipates and prevents
rather than avenges crime. I cannot doubt that, if we had the cipher, we
should find that this communication is of the nature that I indicate."

Again Holmes flattened out the paper upon his unused plate. I rose and,
leaning over him, stared down at the curious inscription, which ran as
follows:

534 C2 13 127 36 31 4 17 21 41 DOUGLAS 109 293 5 37 BIRLSTONE 26
BIRLSTONE 9 47 171

"What do you make of it, Holmes?"

"It is obviously an attempt to convey secret information."

"But what is the use of a cipher message without the cipher?"

"In this instance, none at all."

"Why do you say 'in this instance'?"

"Because there are many ciphers which I would read as easily as I do the
apocrypha of the agony column: such crude devices amuse the intelligence
without fatiguing it. But this is different. It is clearly a reference
to the words in a page of some book. Until I am told which page and
which book I am powerless."

"But why 'Douglas' and 'Birlstone'?"

"Clearly because those are words which were not contained in the page in
question."

"Then why has he not indicated the book?"

"Your native shrewdness, my dear Watson, that innate cunning which is
the delight of your friends, would surely prevent you from inclosing
cipher and message in the same envelope. Should it miscarry, you are
undone. As it is, both have to go wrong before any harm comes from it.
Our second post is now overdue, and I shall be surprised if it does
not bring us either a further letter of explanation, or, as is more
probable, the very volume to which these figures refer."

Holmes's calculation was fulfilled within a very few minutes by the
appearance of Billy, the page, with the very letter which we were
expecting.

"The same writing," remarked Holmes, as he opened the envelope, "and
actually signed," he added in an exultant voice as he unfolded the
epistle. "Come, we are getting on, Watson." His brow clouded, however,
as he glanced over the contents.

"Dear me, this is very disappointing! I fear, Watson, that all our
expectations come to nothing. I trust that the man Porlock will come to
no harm.

"DEAR MR. HOLMES [he says]:

"I will go no further in this matter. It is too dangerous--he suspects
me. I can see that he suspects me. He came to me quite unexpectedly
after I had actually addressed this envelope with the intention of
sending you the key to the cipher. I was able to cover it up. If he had
seen it, it would have gone hard with me. But I read suspicion in his
eyes. Please burn the cipher message, which can now be of no use to you.

"FRED PORLOCK."

Holmes sat for some little time twisting this letter between his
fingers, and frowning, as he stared into the fire.

"After all," he said at last, "there may be nothing in it. It may be
only his guilty conscience. Knowing himself to be a traitor, he may have
read the accusation in the other's eyes."

"The other being, I presume, Professor Moriarty."

"No less! When any of that party talk about 'He' you know whom they
mean. There is one predominant 'He' for all of them."

"But what can he do?"

"Hum! That's a large question. When you have one of the first brains of
Europe up against you, and all the powers of darkness at his back, there
are infinite possibilities. Anyhow, Friend Porlock is evidently scared
out of his senses--kindly compare the writing in the note to that upon
its envelope; which was done, he tells us, before this ill-omened visit.
The one is clear and firm. The other hardly legible."

"Why did he write at all? Why did he not simply drop it?"

"Because he feared I would make some inquiry after him in that case, and
possibly bring trouble on him."

"No doubt," said I. "Of course." I had picked up the original cipher
message and was bending my brows over it. "It's pretty maddening to
think that an important secret may lie here on this slip of paper, and
that it is beyond human power to penetrate it."

Sherlock Holmes had pushed away his untasted breakfast and lit the
unsavoury pipe which was the companion of his deepest meditations. "I
wonder!" said he, leaning back and staring at the ceiling. "Perhaps
there are points which have escaped your Machiavellian intellect. Let us
consider the problem in the light of pure reason. This man's reference
is to a book. That is our point of departure."

"A somewhat vague one."

"Let us see then if we can narrow it down. As I focus my mind upon it,
it seems rather less impenetrable. What indications have we as to this
book?"

"None."

"Well, well, it is surely not quite so bad as that. The cipher message
begins with a large 534, does it not? We may take it as a working
hypothesis that 534 is the particular page to which the cipher refers.
So our book has already become a LARGE book, which is surely something
gained. What other indications have we as to the nature of this large
book? The next sign is C2. What do you make of that, Watson?"

"Chapter the second, no doubt."

"Hardly that, Watson. You will, I am sure, agree with me that if the
page be given, the number of the chapter is immaterial. Also that if
page 534 finds us only in the second chapter, the length of the first
one must have been really intolerable."

"Column!" I cried.

"Brilliant, Watson. You are scintillating this morning. If it is not
column, then I am very much deceived. So now, you see, we begin to
visualize a large book printed in double columns which are each of a
considerable length, since one of the words is numbered in the document
as the two hundred and ninety-third. Have we reached the limits of what
reason can supply?"

"I fear that we have."

"Surely you do yourself an injustice. One more coruscation, my dear
Watson--yet another brain-wave! Had the volume been an unusual one, he
would have sent it to me. Instead of that, he had intended, before his
plans were nipped, to send me the clue in this envelope. He says so
in his note. This would seem to indicate that the book is one which he
thought I would have no difficulty in finding for myself. He had it--and
he imagined that I would have it, too. In short, Watson, it is a very
common book."

"What you say certainly sounds plausible."

"So we have contracted our field of search to a large book, printed in
double columns and in common use."

"The Bible!" I cried triumphantly.

"Good, Watson, good! But not, if I may say so, quite good enough! Even
if I accepted the compliment for myself I could hardly name any volume
which would be less likely to lie at the elbow of one of Moriarty's
associates. Besides, the editions of Holy Writ are so numerous that he
could hardly suppose that two copies would have the same pagination.
This is clearly a book which is standardized. He knows for certain that
his page 534 will exactly agree with my page 534."

"But very few books would correspond with that."

"Exactly. Therein lies our salvation. Our search is narrowed down to
standardized books which anyone may be supposed to possess."

"Bradshaw!"

"There are difficulties, Watson. The vocabulary of Bradshaw is nervous
and terse, but limited. The selection of words would hardly lend itself
to the sending of general messages. We will eliminate Bradshaw. The
dictionary is, I fear, inadmissible for the same reason. What then is
left?"

"An almanac!"

"Excellent, Watson! I am very much mistaken if you have not touched the
spot. An almanac! Let us consider the claims of Whitaker's Almanac. It
is in common use. It has the requisite number of pages. It is in double
column. Though reserved in its earlier vocabulary, it becomes, if I
remember right, quite garrulous towards the end." He picked the volume
from his desk. "Here is page 534, column two, a substantial block of
print dealing, I perceive, with the trade and resources of British
India. Jot down the words, Watson! Number thirteen is 'Mahratta.' Not,
I fear, a very auspicious beginning. Number one hundred and twenty-seven
is 'Government'; which at least makes sense, though somewhat irrelevant
to ourselves and Professor Moriarty. Now let us try again. What does the
Mahratta government do? Alas! the next word is 'pig's-bristles.' We are
undone, my good Watson! It is finished!"

He had spoken in jesting vein, but the twitching of his bushy eyebrows
bespoke his disappointment and irritation. I sat helpless and unhappy,
staring into the fire. A long silence was broken by a sudden exclamation
from Holmes, who dashed at a cupboard, from which he emerged with a
second yellow-covered volume in his hand.

"We pay the price, Watson, for being too up-to-date!" he cried. "We are
before our time, and suffer the usual penalties. Being the seventh of
January, we have very properly laid in the new almanac. It is more than
likely that Porlock took his message from the old one. No doubt he would
have told us so had his letter of explanation been written. Now let us
see what page 534 has in store for us. Number thirteen is 'There,'
which is much more promising. Number one hundred and twenty-seven is
'is'--'There is' "--Holmes's eyes were gleaming with excitement, and his
thin, nervous fingers twitched as he counted the words--"'danger.' Ha!
Ha! Capital! Put that down, Watson. 'There is danger--may--come--very
soon--one.' Then we have the name 'Douglas'--'rich--country--now--at
Birlstone--House--Birlstone--confidence--is--pressing.' There, Watson!
What do you think of pure reason and its fruit? If the green-grocer had
such a thing as a laurel wreath, I should send Billy round for it."

I was staring at the strange message which I had scrawled, as he
deciphered it, upon a sheet of foolscap on my knee.

"What a queer, scrambling way of expressing his meaning!" said I.

"On the contrary, he has done quite remarkably well," said Holmes. "When
you search a single column for words with which to express your meaning,
you can hardly expect to get everything you want. You are bound to leave
something to the intelligence of your correspondent. The purport is
perfectly clear. Some deviltry is intended against one Douglas,
whoever he may be, residing as stated, a rich country gentleman. He is
sure--'confidence' was as near as he could get to 'confident'--that it
is pressing. There is our result--and a very workmanlike little bit of
analysis it was!"

Holmes had the impersonal joy of the true artist in his better work,
even as he mourned darkly when it fell below the high level to which he
aspired. He was still chuckling over his success when Billy swung open
the door and Inspector MacDonald of Scotland Yard was ushered into the
room.

Those were the early days at the end of the '80's, when Alec MacDonald
was far from having attained the national fame which he has now
achieved. He was a young but trusted member of the detective force, who
had distinguished himself in several cases which had been intrusted
to him. His tall, bony figure gave promise of exceptional physical
strength, while his great cranium and deep-set, lustrous eyes spoke no
less clearly of the keen intelligence which twinkled out from behind his
bushy eyebrows. He was a silent, precise man with a dour nature and a
hard Aberdonian accent.

Twice already in his career had Holmes helped him to attain success,
his own sole reward being the intellectual joy of the problem. For
this reason the affection and respect of the Scotchman for his amateur
colleague were profound, and he showed them by the frankness with which
he consulted Holmes in every difficulty. Mediocrity knows nothing higher
than itself; but talent instantly recognizes genius, and MacDonald had
talent enough for his profession to enable him to perceive that there
was no humiliation in seeking the assistance of one who already stood
alone in Europe, both in his gifts and in his experience. Holmes was
not prone to friendship, but he was tolerant of the big Scotchman, and
smiled at the sight of him.

"You are an early bird, Mr. Mac," said he. "I wish you luck with your
worm. I fear this means that there is some mischief afoot."

"If you said 'hope' instead of 'fear,' it would be nearer the truth,
I'm thinking, Mr. Holmes," the inspector answered, with a knowing grin.
"Well, maybe a wee nip would keep out the raw morning chill. No, I won't
smoke, I thank you. I'll have to be pushing on my way; for the early
hours of a case are the precious ones, as no man knows better than your
own self. But--but--"

The inspector had stopped suddenly, and was staring with a look of
absolute amazement at a paper upon the table. It was the sheet upon
which I had scrawled the enigmatic message.

"Douglas!" he stammered. "Birlstone! What's this, Mr. Holmes? Man, it's
witchcraft! Where in the name of all that is wonderful did you get those
names?"

"It is a cipher that Dr. Watson and I have had occasion to solve. But
why--what's amiss with the names?"

The inspector looked from one to the other of us in dazed astonishment.
"Just this," said he, "that Mr. Douglas of Birlstone Manor House was
horribly murdered last night!"

Q: Can you write an appropriate summary of the above paragraphs?
A:

completion: Watson narrates the tale. He begins with Sherlock Holmes lost in thought, looking at a letter from 'Porlock'. Watson asks who Porlock is, and Holmes explains it is a nom-de-plume; Porlock is important in that he is connected to an influential man: Professor Moriarty. Moriarty is unknown as a criminal to the public, but Holmes knows better; however, anyone who tries to cast aspersions at the great man would be laughed at. Watson nods in agreement and Holmes continues, saying Porlock has been a secret help to him once or twice. He has now sent a series of numbers and letters with two words: 'Douglas' and 'Birlstone', the latter repeated twice. It is a cipher with no code. Watson asks why there would be no code; Holmes believes it will arrive soon. Indeed, the page soon arrives, but when Holmes opens the letter they see that the frightened Porlock has written that he will not provide the code because he is under suspicion. Watson rues that there is a secret in the cipher that they will never know. Holmes is quiet, and then says that it relates to a book; he infers that Porlock assumed he'd have it. They deduce it must be the most commonly possessed book--an almanac. They locate the right almanac and the correct pages and words in order to discern that someone named Douglas is in danger, and a house of Birlstone is somehow involved. Before they can parse these words much further than acknowledging the danger for this gentleman named Douglas, Alec MacDonald of Scotland Yard enters; he is a friend of Holmes's whom the detective had helped a few times in the past, thereby earning the young, intelligent Scotsman's respect. MacDonald greets Holmes and Watson and says there is new mischief afoot, but before he can get further he sees the cipher on the table. His entire countenance fills with amazement and he sputters out his question of how Holmes got the cipher. After Holmes asks what is amiss; MacDonald says, dazed, Mr. Douglas of Birlstone was murdered last night


prompt:
Chapter: It was one of those dramatic moments for which my friend existed. It
would be an overstatement to say that he was shocked or even excited
by the amazing announcement. Without having a tinge of cruelty in
his singular composition, he was undoubtedly callous from long
overstimulation. Yet, if his emotions were dulled, his intellectual
perceptions were exceedingly active. There was no trace then of the
horror which I had myself felt at this curt declaration; but his face
showed rather the quiet and interested composure of the chemist who sees
the crystals falling into position from his oversaturated solution.

"Remarkable!" said he. "Remarkable!"

"You don't seem surprised."

"Interested, Mr. Mac, but hardly surprised. Why should I be surprised?
I receive an anonymous communication from a quarter which I know to be
important, warning me that danger threatens a certain person. Within
an hour I learn that this danger has actually materialized and that
the person is dead. I am interested; but, as you observe, I am not
surprised."

In a few short sentences he explained to the inspector the facts about
the letter and the cipher. MacDonald sat with his chin on his hands and
his great sandy eyebrows bunched into a yellow tangle.

"I was going down to Birlstone this morning," said he. "I had come to
ask you if you cared to come with me--you and your friend here. But from
what you say we might perhaps be doing better work in London."

"I rather think not," said Holmes.

"Hang it all, Mr. Holmes!" cried the inspector. "The papers will be full
of the Birlstone mystery in a day or two; but where's the mystery
if there is a man in London who prophesied the crime before ever it
occurred? We have only to lay our hands on that man, and the rest will
follow."

"No doubt, Mr. Mac. But how do you propose to lay your hands on the
so-called Porlock?"

MacDonald turned over the letter which Holmes had handed him. "Posted
in Camberwell--that doesn't help us much. Name, you say, is assumed. Not
much to go on, certainly. Didn't you say that you have sent him money?"

"Twice."

"And how?"

"In notes to Camberwell post office."

"Did you ever trouble to see who called for them?"

"No."

The inspector looked surprised and a little shocked. "Why not?"

"Because I always keep faith. I had promised when he first wrote that I
would not try to trace him."

"You think there is someone behind him?"

"I know there is."

"This professor that I've heard you mention?"

"Exactly!"

Inspector MacDonald smiled, and his eyelid quivered as he glanced
towards me. "I won't conceal from you, Mr. Holmes, that we think in
the C.I.D. that you have a wee bit of a bee in your bonnet over this
professor. I made some inquiries myself about the matter. He seems to be
a very respectable, learned, and talented sort of man."

"I'm glad you've got so far as to recognize the talent."

"Man, you can't but recognize it! After I heard your view I made it my
business to see him. I had a chat with him on eclipses. How the talk got
that way I canna think; but he had out a reflector lantern and a globe,
and made it all clear in a minute. He lent me a book; but I don't mind
saying that it was a bit above my head, though I had a good Aberdeen
upbringing. He'd have made a grand meenister with his thin face and gray
hair and solemn-like way of talking. When he put his hand on my shoulder
as we were parting, it was like a father's blessing before you go out
into the cold, cruel world."

Holmes chuckled and rubbed his hands. "Great!" he said. "Great! Tell me,
Friend MacDonald, this pleasing and touching interview was, I suppose,
in the professor's study?"

"That's so."

"A fine room, is it not?"

"Very fine--very handsome indeed, Mr. Holmes."

"You sat in front of his writing desk?"

"Just so."

"Sun in your eyes and his face in the shadow?"

"Well, it was evening; but I mind that the lamp was turned on my face."

"It would be. Did you happen to observe a picture over the professor's
head?"

"I don't miss much, Mr. Holmes. Maybe I learned that from you. Yes, I
saw the picture--a young woman with her head on her hands, peeping at
you sideways."

"That painting was by Jean Baptiste Greuze."

The inspector endeavoured to look interested.

"Jean Baptiste Greuze," Holmes continued, joining his finger tips and
leaning well back in his chair, "was a French artist who flourished
between the years 1750 and 1800. I allude, of course to his working
career. Modern criticism has more than indorsed the high opinion formed
of him by his contemporaries."

The inspector's eyes grew abstracted. "Hadn't we better--" he said.

"We are doing so," Holmes interrupted. "All that I am saying has a
very direct and vital bearing upon what you have called the Birlstone
Mystery. In fact, it may in a sense be called the very centre of it."

MacDonald smiled feebly, and looked appealingly to me. "Your thoughts
move a bit too quick for me, Mr. Holmes. You leave out a link or two,
and I can't get over the gap. What in the whole wide world can be the
connection between this dead painting man and the affair at Birlstone?"

"All knowledge comes useful to the detective," remarked Holmes. "Even
the trivial fact that in the year 1865 a picture by Greuze entitled
La Jeune Fille a l'Agneau fetched one million two hundred thousand
francs--more than forty thousand pounds--at the Portalis sale may start
a train of reflection in your mind."

It was clear that it did. The inspector looked honestly interested.

"I may remind you," Holmes continued, "that the professor's salary can
be ascertained in several trustworthy books of reference. It is seven
hundred a year."

"Then how could he buy--"

"Quite so! How could he?"

"Ay, that's remarkable," said the inspector thoughtfully. "Talk away,
Mr. Holmes. I'm just loving it. It's fine!"

Holmes smiled. He was always warmed by genuine admiration--the
characteristic of the real artist. "What about Birlstone?" he asked.

"We've time yet," said the inspector, glancing at his watch. "I've a cab
at the door, and it won't take us twenty minutes to Victoria. But about
this picture: I thought you told me once, Mr. Holmes, that you had never
met Professor Moriarty."

"No, I never have."

"Then how do you know about his rooms?"

"Ah, that's another matter. I have been three times in his rooms, twice
waiting for him under different pretexts and leaving before he came.
Once--well, I can hardly tell about the once to an official detective.
It was on the last occasion that I took the liberty of running over his
papers--with the most unexpected results."

"You found something compromising?"

"Absolutely nothing. That was what amazed me. However, you have now seen
the point of the picture. It shows him to be a very wealthy man. How
did he acquire wealth? He is unmarried. His younger brother is a station
master in the west of England. His chair is worth seven hundred a year.
And he owns a Greuze."

"Well?"

"Surely the inference is plain."

"You mean that he has a great income and that he must earn it in an
illegal fashion?"

"Exactly. Of course I have other reasons for thinking so--dozens of
exiguous threads which lead vaguely up towards the centre of the web
where the poisonous, motionless creature is lurking. I only mention
the Greuze because it brings the matter within the range of your own
observation."

"Well, Mr. Holmes, I admit that what you say is interesting: it's more
than interesting--it's just wonderful. But let us have it a little
clearer if you can. Is it forgery, coining, burglary--where does the
money come from?"

"Have you ever read of Jonathan Wild?"

"Well, the name has a familiar sound. Someone in a novel, was he not? I
don't take much stock of detectives in novels--chaps that do things
and never let you see how they do them. That's just inspiration: not
business."

"Jonathan Wild wasn't a detective, and he wasn't in a novel. He was a
master criminal, and he lived last century--1750 or thereabouts."

"Then he's no use to me. I'm a practical man."

"Mr. Mac, the most practical thing that you ever did in your life would
be to shut yourself up for three months and read twelve hours a day
at the annals of crime. Everything comes in circles--even Professor
Moriarty. Jonathan Wild was the hidden force of the London criminals,
to whom he sold his brains and his organization on a fifteen per cent.
commission. The old wheel turns, and the same spoke comes up. It's all
been done before, and will be again. I'll tell you one or two things
about Moriarty which may interest you."

"You'll interest me, right enough."

"I happen to know who is the first link in his chain--a chain with
this Napoleon-gone-wrong at one end, and a hundred broken fighting men,
pickpockets, blackmailers, and card sharpers at the other, with every
sort of crime in between. His chief of staff is Colonel Sebastian Moran,
as aloof and guarded and inaccessible to the law as himself. What do you
think he pays him?"

"I'd like to hear."

"Six thousand a year. That's paying for brains, you see--the American
business principle. I learned that detail quite by chance. It's more
than the Prime Minister gets. That gives you an idea of Moriarty's gains
and of the scale on which he works. Another point: I made it my business
to hunt down some of Moriarty's checks lately--just common innocent
checks that he pays his household bills with. They were drawn on six
different banks. Does that make any impression on your mind?"

"Queer, certainly! But what do you gather from it?"

"That he wanted no gossip about his wealth. No single man should know
what he had. I have no doubt that he has twenty banking accounts; the
bulk of his fortune abroad in the Deutsche Bank or the Credit Lyonnais
as likely as not. Sometime when you have a year or two to spare I
commend to you the study of Professor Moriarty."

Inspector MacDonald had grown steadily more impressed as the
conversation proceeded. He had lost himself in his interest. Now his
practical Scotch intelligence brought him back with a snap to the matter
in hand.

"He can keep, anyhow," said he. "You've got us side-tracked with your
interesting anecdotes, Mr. Holmes. What really counts is your remark
that there is some connection between the professor and the crime. That
you get from the warning received through the man Porlock. Can we for
our present practical needs get any further than that?"

"We may form some conception as to the motives of the crime. It is, as
I gather from your original remarks, an inexplicable, or at least an
unexplained, murder. Now, presuming that the source of the crime is as
we suspect it to be, there might be two different motives. In the first
place, I may tell you that Moriarty rules with a rod of iron over his
people. His discipline is tremendous. There is only one punishment in
his code. It is death. Now we might suppose that this murdered man--this
Douglas whose approaching fate was known by one of the arch-criminal's
subordinates--had in some way betrayed the chief. His punishment
followed, and would be known to all--if only to put the fear of death
into them."

"Well, that is one suggestion, Mr. Holmes."

"The other is that it has been engineered by Moriarty in the ordinary
course of business. Was there any robbery?"

"I have not heard."

"If so, it would, of course, be against the first hypothesis and in
favour of the second. Moriarty may have been engaged to engineer it on a
promise of part spoils, or he may have been paid so much down to manage
it. Either is possible. But whichever it may be, or if it is some third
combination, it is down at Birlstone that we must seek the solution. I
know our man too well to suppose that he has left anything up here which
may lead us to him."

"Then to Birlstone we must go!" cried MacDonald, jumping from his chair.
"My word! it's later than I thought. I can give you, gentlemen, five
minutes for preparation, and that is all."

"And ample for us both," said Holmes, as he sprang up and hastened to
change from his dressing gown to his coat. "While we are on our way, Mr.
Mac, I will ask you to be good enough to tell me all about it."

"All about it" proved to be disappointingly little, and yet there was
enough to assure us that the case before us might well be worthy of
the expert's closest attention. He brightened and rubbed his thin hands
together as he listened to the meagre but remarkable details. A long
series of sterile weeks lay behind us, and here at last there was a
fitting object for those remarkable powers which, like all special
gifts, become irksome to their owner when they are not in use. That
razor brain blunted and rusted with inaction.

Sherlock Holmes's eyes glistened, his pale cheeks took a warmer hue, and
his whole eager face shone with an inward light when the call for
work reached him. Leaning forward in the cab, he listened intently to
MacDonald's short sketch of the problem which awaited us in Sussex. The
inspector was himself dependent, as he explained to us, upon a scribbled
account forwarded to him by the milk train in the early hours of the
morning. White Mason, the local officer, was a personal friend, and
hence MacDonald had been notified much more promptly than is usual at
Scotland Yard when provincials need their assistance. It is a very cold
scent upon which the Metropolitan expert is generally asked to run.

"DEAR INSPECTOR MACDONALD [said the letter which he read to us]:

"Official requisition for your services is in separate envelope. This is
for your private eye. Wire me what train in the morning you can get for
Birlstone, and I will meet it--or have it met if I am too occupied. This
case is a snorter. Don't waste a moment in getting started. If you can
bring Mr. Holmes, please do so; for he will find something after his own
heart. We would think the whole had been fixed up for theatrical
effect if there wasn't a dead man in the middle of it. My word! it IS a
snorter."

"Your friend seems to be no fool," remarked Holmes.

"No, sir, White Mason is a very live man, if I am any judge."

"Well, have you anything more?"

"Only that he will give us every detail when we meet."

"Then how did you get at Mr. Douglas and the fact that he had been
horribly murdered?"

"That was in the inclosed official report. It didn't say 'horrible':
that's not a recognized official term. It gave the name John Douglas. It
mentioned that his injuries had been in the head, from the discharge of
a shotgun. It also mentioned the hour of the alarm, which was close on
to midnight last night. It added that the case was undoubtedly one of
murder, but that no arrest had been made, and that the case was one
which presented some very perplexing and extraordinary features. That's
absolutely all we have at present, Mr. Holmes."

"Then, with your permission, we will leave it at that, Mr. Mac. The
temptation to form premature theories upon insufficient data is the bane
of our profession. I can see only two things for certain at present--a
great brain in London, and a dead man in Sussex. It's the chain between
that we are going to trace."

Q: Can you write an appropriate summary of the above paragraphs?
A:

completion: This is the sort of moment Holmes lives for. He looks composed and interested, more intellectually excited than shocked or horrified. He explains the background of the cipher to MacDonald, and when MacDonald says they must find Porlock Holmes states that this is impossible. Porlock is connected to Moriarty, he explains. MacDonald smiles a bit and says the Yard thinks Holmes has a bee in his bonnet over the Professor. MacDonald had gone to see the Professor himself and was struck by his solemn mien and erudition. Holmes laughs and asks if MacDonald happened to notice the painting by Jean Baptiste Greuze behind Moriarty's desk. The inspector is confused and says no. Holmes explains who Greuze is and how valuable his paintings are; MacDonald wonders aloud how the Professor could afford it. That is the point, Holmes tells him, and they speculate about the man's illegal activities that procured his great wealth. Holmes knows a lot about Moriarty: he has many bank accounts, and must have extravagant wealth to be able to pay, for example, his chief of staff six thousand a year. The talk turns back to the murdered man, and the men speculate that Douglas came afoul of Moriarty, who ruled over his people with an iron fist. They all agree to go to Birlstone. MacDonald reads a note from Birlstone's local officer, White Mason, who had first taken up the case. Mason asked MacDonald to bring Holmes. Holmes muses aloud that there is a great brain in London and a dead man in Birlstone, and it is their job to trace the connection between them