The valley of eyes unseen

The tale begins in my rooms in Peking, in the north of China, one bitter January morning many years ago. The scene is stamped ineffaceably on my recollection, so that even without the help of certain confirmatory details, such as the overturning of the coffee pot, I am able to say with certainty that the hour of day was breakfast time. The breakfast table was the central point of a triangle, formed by the blazing fire in the grate and two ponderous oil stoves farther out in the room; for this was in the punishing old days before that gift of the gods, the steam-heated radiator, came to soften the arctic rigours of a North China winter.

My number-one house boy had brought in the morning paper and laid it on my table, but it was without any lively anticipation of delight that I picked up the straw-blemished, hazily printed sheet. The local press of the time was not of enthralling interest; and what news of the outer world filtered through to our buried corner of Asia in erratic dribbles was apt to be still further marred by the bold but not always illuminating innovations of the Chinese compositors in setting English type. I was idly turning over the spavined issue of this morning when something caught my eye in the middle column of the middle page. A moment later the sheet was fluttering to the floor, and a river of boiling coffee sluiced out over the cloth of the breakfast table.

I picked up the fallen newspaper and began to read. The age-yellowed sheet lies before me as I write, and the following, save for numerous typographical errors which I have not copied, is an exact transcript of the report that had given me this sudden start:--

"MYSTERIOUS AFFAIR IN SHANGHAI.

"DISTINGUISHED ORIENTALIST DEAD, IS REPORT.

"Our Shanghai correspondent writes: 'Mr. Ronald Mirlees, the well-known author, was discovered dead in the Marco Polo Hotel of this city, this morning about eight o'clock, under circumstances of considerable mystery. The deceased was well known to the management and staff, having frequently stayed at Marco Polo before, in the intervals between his journeys to other localities of China on research work. It is believed he had just returned from one such expedition three months back, when he took possession of the two first-storey rooms he was occupying at the time of his death. Mr. Mirlees lived apparently much alone, hotel servants state, remaining busy at work in his apartment all day and barely desisting from his labours to take meals which were brought up to him; indeed, house boy whose duty it was to attend to Mr. Mirlees alleges that more than once he found the scholar at work in the early morning, his bed not slept in; from which it is assumed at the hotel that Mirlees was for some reason or other working against time to complete one of those contributions to oriental research with which his name has become associated.

"'When house boy entered Mr. Mirlees' apartment this morning he found deceased at his writing desk apparently deep in composition. Deceased's back was turned to the door, and not until the servant had asked Mr. Mirlees what time to serve breakfast and received no reply that he suspected anything was untoward. Then he approached and saw. The boy becoming terror-stricken screamed for help, and other servants rushed in, followed by Mr. Alexis Delabre (Manager, Marco Polo Hotel), who overheard the boy's cries. Medical aid was at once summoned, but quite unavailing, death having apparently supervened several hours before as muscles of deceased were already set fast in rigor mortis. Witnesses one and all lay especial emphasis on gruesome nature of the discovery. The body, they allege, was placed in so natural and lifelike an attitude that until spectators had come right across the apartment and looked from that side they were unable to credit they were looking upon a corpse. Expression on features of dead man is stated to have been one of extreme horror, not pain--witnesses are unanimous upon that point--but sheer and unmistakable horror. Mr. Mirlees held a pen in one hand and there were sheets of paper before him, but no mark upon them. There, in fact, lies another mysterious feature of the case. No trace can be found of the voluminous writings upon which Mr. Mirlees is lately known to have been engaged. Only possible explanation would appear to be that prior to his decease he had forwarded his manuscripts elsewhere, and that he was meditating composition of another when death overtook him. Medical evidence, however, places hour of decease about two a.m., and why the defunct man should remain at his desk far into the night without putting pen to paper is another point which remains shrouded in obscurity.

"'No cause so far has been assigned for Mr. Mirlees' sudden end, and the strange and tragic affair will of course necessitate coroner's inquest. Mr. Mirlees was thought to be enjoying good health, though his manner had been observed to be moody and distraught for some time, as if he were prey to some severe mental stress; this, however, is alleged by those who knew deceased orientalist best to have been a not uncommon mood with him.'"

"Mr. Ronald Mirlees was a widower, having lost his wife in Shanghai some years back, and so far as is known leaves no relatives to mourn his loss. His death will be keenly felt among scholarly circles of the Far East, however, and indeed of the East generally, to whose researches in oriental art and archæology he contributed matter of recognised value, though not a few of our prominent sinologues were disposed to regard Mr. Mirlees' essays as more brilliant and imaginative than sound. His best known and most characteristic work was the volume entitled Treasure of Asia, which appeared only last year, and as is no doubt still fresh in the minds of our readers aroused a storm of controversy not only on this side of the world, but also among the learned societies of Europe and America. At the risk of repeating facts already known we will here state that Mr. Mirlees' work embodies much original matter of deep interest concerning the Buddhist faith and Buddhist temples of China, dealing more particularly, as the title indicates, with instances of treasure buried in and around the ancient shrines. The deceased author's critics, and there were many, challenged his statements on grounds of fact, alleging that no authentic evidence of these supposed hoards exists, and especially on the score of propriety, as they feared that Mr. Mirlees' allegations would have the unfortunate effect of attracting to this country an undesirable class of treasure-hunters who would desecrate religious sites in the mere hope of gain. We are happy to record that this fear has not been realised. Such excavations as have been made have been carried out under the auspices of duly authorised oriental societies, and though the finds so far brought to light have not been extensive, they have afforded considerable proof of the shrewdness and accuracy of Mr. Mirlees' speculations. It is admitted at least that the deceased scholar had opened up a branch of study of peculiar fascination: a line of research which if not absolutely new, has so far never been sufficiently explored; and there seems reason to anticipate that later excavations will still further vindicate his arresting and outspoken views.

"Mr. Mirlees had something of the scholarly recluse in his disposition, and was personally known to but few residents in this country; he was, nevertheless, well liked and admired by such as were privileged to enjoy his friendship, and his death while still in the prime of life--he was in his thirty-seventh year--will be universally deplored."

The foregoing item of news came to me with a peculiar poignancy and shock. I was one of those few persons quoted in the report as having enjoyed the privilege of Mirlees' friendship. I had not known him intimately, it is true, or for any great stretch of time, but there are circumstances which cement friendship more swiftly by far than mere knowledge of a man's history and companionship with him in the common workaday run of the world. If to have shared a strange and perilous adventure and to have escaped with him a horrible death by violence be title to friendship, I was indeed the friend of Ronald Mirlees. The details of this affair I have recorded elsewhere, and need not recount at any length here. It is enough to say that after making Mirlees' acquaintance in the queerest and most unconventional manner I accompanied him on an expedition to an ancient Buddhist temple some forty miles out from the city of Peking, where, by deciphering the inscription carved on the inner surface of the great temple bell, Mirlees hoped to locate a rich hoard of buried gems, an offering to the shrine by some pious donor of the remote past. How we were received by the last surviving priest of the sect, how he most subtly and devilishly plotted to murder us both, how he lost his own life in the attempt and was even instrumental in directing us straight to the cache, and how we took possession and escaped with our bare lives, pursued by a band of the local peasantry out to kill--these matters, as I say, have been chronicled in another place.

After that episode Mirlees returned to Shanghai, which he was wont to make his headquarters, and I heard no more of him until the publication of that remarkable book entitled Treasure of Asia sent his name whooping round the erudite world. Our North China adventure was not specifically recorded in that work: I imagine that Mirlees judged the affair too recent to be safely alluded to, fearing lest our ownership of the treasure trove be disputed; but it unquestionably afforded to himself, if he needed such, a crowning proof of the soundness of his views, to say nothing of ample funds wherewith to meet the expense of publication.

The report of the inquest came a few days after the news of Mirlees' death. Nothing had been found to account satisfactorily for this, and the medicos were obliged to wrap their ignorance in a few foggy generalities regarding obscure affections of the heart. The finding would have far from satisfied public opinion at Home. It left me distinctly sceptical even in so raw and haphazard a region as the Far East. There was something hidden, some mystery left unravelled. Mirlees' age had been correctly stated in the newspaper report as only thirty-six years; he was, moreover, of that "hard-bitten" type which, if it dies young, does so only by a violent or unnatural death.

I was still pondering the melancholy problem a week later when I received from a firm of solicitors in Shanghai a letter stating that in pursuance of the request made to them some days before by their client, the late Ronald Mirlees, they were forwarding to me, separately, a parcel which he had left in their charge. The lawyers added that while respecting the promise Mirlees had extracted from them not to reveal this matter to any third party, they relied on my honour to make public any evidence the parcel might contain which would help the authorities to arrive at some conclusion regarding Mr. Mirlees' mysterious death. Of the contents of the package they themselves were totally ignorant.