The mandala of Sherlock Holmes: the missing years - By Jamyang Norbu Page 0,3
Kipling, late of the Allahabad Pioneer, who with deplorable journalistic flippancy, managed, in one fell stroke, to debase the very important activities of our Department to the level of one of those cricket matches so eloquently described in the poems of Sir Henry Newbolt.
I am not fully cognisant of how it all came about, but very unfortunately Mr Kipling managed to acquire details of the affair concerning The Pedigree of the White Stallion,'1 which he coolly published in the Sunday edition of the Pioneer, 15th June 1891, entitled, 'The Great Game: The Lion's Reply to the Bear's Intrigues.' Essentially it concerned five confederated kings on the North-West frontier of India (who had no business to confederate) commencing earnest but secret negotiations with a firm of gun-makers in Belgium, a Hindu banker in Peshawar, an important semi-independent Mohammedan ruler to the south, and — the greatest cheek of all — a Northern power whose interest could, in no way, be said to coincide with that of the Empire's.
The Department had not been wholly unexpectant of such a development, and I had been assigned north for more than a year to keep a sharp eye on the doings of our five rajah sahibs. It is not necessary for me to elucidate the modus operandi of the following; suffice it to say that by establishing amicable relations with an underpaid secretary and transferring a large amount of rupees, I managed to arrange the betrayal of some vital mursala, 'King's letters,' or state correspondence which let all the cats out of the bag, so to speak. I had forwarded the revelations via E.23, C.25, and eventually K.21 to Colonel Creighton, the head of our Department.
The government acted with unusual promptitude and despatch. An army of eight thousand men besides guns were sent nprth, and it fell upon the five kings ere they were ready. But the war was not pushed. The croops were recalled because the government believed the five kings were cowed; and it is not cheap to feed men on the high passes. It was not the best of solutions; in fact, I thought it the most reprehensible laxity on the part of the government to allow the five kings — who were as treacherous as scorpion-suckled cobras — to even live. But officially I am debarred from criticising any action of my superiors, and I am only stating this unofficially merely to elucidate the political situation.
When that issue of the Pioneer came out with Mr Kipling's indiscreet (to say the least) story, it caused a tremendous hullabaloo in the Department. The Colonel Sahib realised that the inspiration for Mr Kipling's tale had come from within, ab intra, so to speak, and was beside himself with rage at this most base act of treason. Normally an unemotional and reserved man, he stormed through the corridor of the departmental bungalow at Umballa with the 'righteous fury of a Juvenal.' Grim interviews were conducted in his office with all and sundry connected to the case, even I having to spend an uncomfortable hour under the Colonel's piercing eyes. Of course, I managed to acquit myself well enough, though to be scrupulously correct I must admit to shedding a little perspiration before the interview was finally terminated, sine die, and I was allowed to leave the room.
The resultant conclusion of the investigation revealed a less critical flaw in the integrity of our Department than we had initially feared. Two babus from the archives were sacked, posthaste, and a young English captain with literary ambitions (he had contributed poetry, among other things, to the Pioneer) was transferred to an army transport division in Mewar, to breed camels and bullocks for the rest of his career. Mr Kipling was informed, through the editor of the Pioneer, that his conduct in this affair had not been entirely gentlemanly, but that the government would take no action if Mr Kipling would refrain from the furtherance of his journalistic career in India, and return home to England — which he did.
To our relief all of us fieldmen were cleared, though C.25 felt that his izzat had been impugned by the Colonel's suspicions. But a Pathan is always touchy about matters of honour and horseflesh.
Then one day, the thin black body of E.23 was found in a dark gully behind the gilt umbrellas of the Chatter Munzil in Lucknow. A dozen knife wounds, besides other fearful mutilations, had precipitated the untimely demise of the poor chap.