III [19]
SHERLOCK HOLMES IN A WOOD
On 20th April 1895, being engaged in Forest Settlement work among the low hills abutting on the south the mountain barrier between Burma and Assam, I was aroused, as I sat reading in a tent in the afternoon, by a signal. It meant that my colleague, Mr Bruce, the Deputy Conservator of Forests, who had gone out to shoot pigeons for dinner, either was or expected soon to be in contact with tiger, and wished me to join him—which I did, at a run. He was near the camp. The tigers thereabouts are more plentiful than elsewhere in Burma. We had seen and heard abundant evidence of their proximity for weeks past, and were both anxious for a closer acquaintance.
A fat and full-grown deer was lying dead upon the stones in a stream-bed. The first guess was that a tiger, having killed, was about to eat it, but withdrew for a moment out of sight [20] ]at the sound of the pigeon-shooting. On this hypothesis we diligently searched in all likely directions, and made sure there was no tiger near. Then we gathered round the deer. A faint, faint smell, perceptible as we closed upon it, showed that the venison was tending to that disintegration which awaits all flesh when life departs, and answered those who were beginning to doubt if it was dead, because it lay as if it might have been asleep, and there was no sign to show how it had died.
“Twelve to twenty-four hours dead, and not killed by any tiger,” was the first unanimous conclusion, after minute inspection and confabulation; and “still fresh enough to be eaten” was the next decision, all but equally unanimous.
This satisfied most of the men; but Bruce stood silent, while they knelt round it and began to ply their knives. I stayed to await developments. Casting perplexed looks up and down the stream, Bruce ejaculated, more than once, “I would give anything to know how that beast died.” “It’s too soft to roast, but will make splendid curry,” said the cook, inspecting a joint cut from the carcass.
When the men had cut off about three times as much as would suffice to “abate their desire [21] ]of food,” they began obligingly to discuss what was puzzling Bruce, and in a short time, so lively are the Burmese wits, every man seemed to be as interested as himself in the apparently insoluble problem. A mystery attracts men, as a light does the moths; or, as Cicero explains it in his Offices (i.4)—“The peculiarity of man is to seek and follow after truth. So, as soon as we are relaxed from our necessary cares and concerns, what we covet is to see, to hear, and to learn something; and the knowledge of things obscure or wonderful quickly appears to us to be indispensable for our comfort and happiness.”
Wild dogs were as likely as a tiger to have killed that deer; but equally certain not to leave the dead uneaten. The wild dogs and the tigers alike are real professional hunters, who kill in order to be able to eat and live. They are not sportsmen, who kill for amusement, that is to say, for want of occupation. Besides, there were no marks discoverable of either a tiger or dogs.
The partition of the venison served the purpose of a post-mortem. When it was seen that the neck was broken, we looked at the steep ground on the northern bank and saw how the deer could have tumbled down; and “killed by a fall” was the first step to a final verdict.
[22] ]But why did it fall? It was useless to suggest, as one did, “committed suicide in a temporary state of insanity.” He was gravely assured on every hand that the deer, however worried, do not commit suicide.
It would be long to tell the other guesses. Nobody could find a scratch on the carcass. That alone disposed of many theories.