Read The Collected Adventures of Sherlock Holmes in Japan for Free Online Page B

such placed along two walls. There was only one small, cobweb-covered window, so it was dark away from the flickering flame of the lamp. All in all, a singularly unremarkable room – except for one thing.
    Sited the entire length of one wall, a little over six feet tall and approximately ten feet wide, was an impressive painting of Buddha’s death. He was stretched out below a hanging tree that was beside a beautiful river. Gathered all around him were various people and animals, from Indian priests to small white elephants, all of them weeping as the prostrate, barefooted Buddha – clad in an orange robe – gave a gentle smile.
    The quality of the painting had been affected by age, and patches of white mold showed here and there, mainly around its edges. It at once caught Holmes’s eye.
    Obligingly, Katamari held the lamp closer to it, enabling the English detective to make his keen-eyed inspection.
    ‘When was this painting done?’ asked Holmes softly. I sensed that he’d realized something. There was suddenly the slightest edge to his voice, discernible only to someone who’d lived and worked with him for some months now…
    Or so I thought. But then I realized that Katamari was studying Holmes’s face closely, as though searching for some sort of sign…
    ‘I believe it was completed shortly after this temple was built – by Gyoja- sama himself, if the legend is correct,’ returned the senior monk.
    Both Katamari and I now observed that Holmes’s attention was fixed upon some bushes and plants painted on one side of this picture – maybe about a third of the way up.    
    ‘Of course,’ said Holmes, speaking as though to himself. ‘What a fool I have been –that I should have needed to see a picture, even, to realize what this last riddle referred to!’
    ‘You – you know ?’ said Katamari, surprise showing on his thin face.
    ‘It’s as simple as the other two,’ returned Holmes almost angrily. ‘That it’s taken me this long to realize it – almost twenty-four hours – is proof that whatever ‘ability’ I possess has been rather exaggerated.’
    ‘But what – what is the meaning?’ demanded the senior monk, now breathing a little quicker.
    It was Holmes’s turn to give a quick, shrewd look at Katamari. Just for a split-second, however; then the detective said –
    ‘‘Natural beauty becomes / True beauty?/ In accordance with / Human ideal’ – so reads the first ‘verse’ of the last riddle we found. But where do we find natural beauty – and how do we shape it, so it proves aesthetically pleasing to our own, ‘human ideal’?’
    Such was the question the foreigner fired at Katamari and me, in our own tongue. Unsurprisingly, perhaps, neither of us even attempted an answer. 
      ‘Next – ‘A dwarf / Or a cliff / Swept by the wind / Or by attachment to a rock / Salvation,’ continued Holmes remorselessly, the pupils of his eyes like pinpricks. ‘Still no idea? Bonsai , of course! The perfect example of natural beauty being shaped and nurtured by us, humans, into what we consider to be pleasing to the eye.
    ‘Maybe the bonsai is allowed to remain as it is – a dwarf; that is, a stunted tree or bush. But more often than not it is trained – shaped by experts – to give the impression, at least, of a much larger image. A seaside cliff has been a popular image for centuries – a cliff ceaselessly swept and whipped by the wind.’
      ‘But then,’ interrupted Katamari, his thin face upturned slightly as he carefully regarded the Englishman. ‘But then – what are these lines about ‘attachment to a rock’ and ‘salvation’? What have such things to do with bonsai ?’
    ‘Everything!’ returned Holmes, almost with exasperation. ‘Do I, a foreigner, really need to tell you – a senior Buddhist monk? For here we move into the religious significance of bonsai – the very reason why this art-form was created in China in the first place. Long before wealthy