by Tim Symonds
‘Nothing of any value to your case, Holmes, I can assure you,’ I replied. ‘At the end I told him neither you nor I regarded it as any sort of attempt on the Emperor’s life. Then the Empress Dowager beckoned Yuán to join her at the Emperor’s side and that was that.’
‘Good, Watson. Well recalled,’ Holmes responded. ‘But just before that - remind me again - Yuán said what to you...?’
‘He asked if I thought a plot of exceptional cunning could be developing. ‘After all,’ he said, ‘This is China’.’
The frown which had not left Holmes’s forehead deepened. I heard him repeat the words, ‘This is China...’
He jabbed the stem of his pipe towards me.
‘Is that all he said? Have you left anything out in the retelling?’
‘That’s all, Holmes,’ I replied, ‘except a joke he made.’
‘The General joked?’
‘After saying ‘This is China’, Yuán added, ‘If this is a plot there may be method in their madness’.’
‘‘Method’ and ‘madness’. Did the General himself use those words or are they yours?’ Holmes asked.
There was a sharp tone to his voice.
‘Those were his exact words.’
‘If this is a plot there may be method in their madness’, Holmes repeated, followed at once by ‘How deucedly, deucedly cunning’ and a further question: ‘Watson, when you were introduced to the General in London - together with Grey and Haldane - jog my memory, what did he plan to do after leaving the meeting?’
‘Busy himself around London for the afternoon, order telegraph equipment from Marconi. Poach a few professors from our universities. Buy an Englishman’s outfit from Lock’s - which we now know he must have done.’
‘After that?’
‘A trip to Brighton.’
‘To do what, do you recall?’ my comrade pursued.
‘Pay a visit to the Royal Pavilion.’
‘And?’
‘Go to see a Shakespeare play on the Palace Pier.’
‘Did he say which play?’
With my stomach rumbling for lack of food I responded with growing impatience.
‘Look, Holmes, no, he didn’t say. I doubt if he even cared. I doubt if he’d seen a Shakespeare play of any sort before. But for heaven’s sake why should it matter which play he...?’
Holmes broke in sharply, ‘The particular play may be worthless information or of extreme consequence. If the former, we can discard it. Before we meet for dinner, please get a message to Mycroft asking him to find out which Shakespeare performance was on offer on the Brighton Pavilion Pier that day.’
I stood up, impatient but long resigned to my companion’s persnickety methods.
Holmes called after me, ‘And Watson, the watchword is secrecy. Don’t use the Imperial Chinese Telegraphs. Telegraph the message via a British cruiser at Hongkong. The Imperial Chinese Telegraphs are the perquisite of a certain viceroy, General Yuán Shì-kai. Every communication between you and the British Legation in Peking for transmission to London is brought to him immediately. Make use of the Mexican Army wheel coder. You’ll find it in my rooms.’
***
In the morning the eunuch assigned to sleep outside our doors at night brought me a note. It was from Holmes: ‘If you could come to my quarters soonest I would appreciate it greatly.’
I knocked once and entered his room to find him pacing about in a fever of suppressed energy, biting his nails, tapping the furniture. He thrust a copy of the English-language North China Daily News into my hand. Despite the regional title, the banner headline showed it was published in Shanghai, a major East China Treaty Port.
The headline blared-
Disturbing News from the Northern Capital. Dastardly Assassination Attempt. on H.M. Kuang-hsü’s life.
The dramatic words were followed by a remarkably close, albeit highly coloured description of the crow-attack on the Emperor, though the injury to the eardrum was not mentioned.
The Daily News has received information of an attempt on our beloved Emperor’s life. It happened while His Majesty was aboard the Royal steam-launch on his way to the Wanshou Temple to pay homage to the Ancestors, (thus ensuring our country’s well-being),having prepared for the ceremony by a rigorous fast of three days. An explosive device propelled through the air detonated within inches of His Majesty’s head. Fortunately the best foreign doctors were on hand to save His Majesty’s life. No-one has been arrested. The would-be assassins fled like rabbits and hid like a tortoises. They are slaves, pirates, robbers, dogs, and sheep. We wonder how will they face the King of the Underworld after they have died?
The piece ended ominously:
Given the brazen nature of this failed assassination it is likely a further attempt will be made when the hue-and-cry has died down. All those who love and respect the Emperor must pray for his continued safety. Congratulations and memorials on His Majesty’s survival may be sent to His Majesty’s villa at Yingtai.
The address of the Sea Palace followed. Incongruously, the text was accompanied by an archive photograph of the Emperor smiling broadly.
‘Holmes,’ I exclaimed, ‘newspapers are under the strictest orders never to report any such attack, whether on the Empress Dowager or the Son of Heaven?’
‘It’s certainly mystifying,’ Holmes agreed. ‘No autocrat wants it known an assassination attempt has been made, pour éviter un effet indésirable.’
‘More to the point,’ I continued, ‘how did the news get to a newspaper in the first place - and in such detail - especially one which circulates mostly among the Modernists? Who in the Forbidden City would dare to contact the Editor of a Treaty Port newspaper? The Daily News offices are in Shanghai, Hankou, Tianjin and Harbin. Does this back up Yuán’s proposition that behind the plot lies the Emperor and his clique, the ti-tang?’
***
The sun was high in the sky when I returned to Holmes’s quarters. He pointed at the telegram in my hand.
‘You have news then?’
‘I have, Holmes,’ I replied. Pleased with myself, I added, ‘I have already decoded it using your machine. The Shakespeare play performed on the day of the General’s visit to Brighton was...’
Before I could reveal the title Holmes interrupted me with, ‘My friend, I believe you know something of waging bets?’
Over the years, to Holmes’s mild contempt, a penchant for betting on ‘the ponies’ had eaten up much of my Army discharge pension of 11 shillings and 6 pence a month.
‘If you mean we should have a bet on whether you can guess the name of the play Yuán saw on Brighton Pier,’ I answered, ‘I can offer you top hole odds. It’s a racing certainty you’ll lose. Shall we bet the sum you extracted from me in your masquerade as a fortune-teller - 50 cash?’
The grin on Holmes’s face should have made me wary.
‘And your odds?’ he asked.
‘How many plays did Shakespeare write?’ I asked.
‘Thirty-seven, I’m told,’ came the reply.
I plunged in.
‘As it’s like taking pocket-money from a child, Holmes, how about if I offer you 37 to 1.’
‘Done!’
‘And the title of the play?’
‘‘The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark’,’ came Holmes’s response.
Twin feelings of dismay and admiration surged through me. Pushing the telegram at him, I exclaimed, ‘You’re right! How did...’
‘As so often, Watson,’ Holmes responded, ‘it was you who gave me the clue. You reported verbatim the conversation you had with the General while the Old Buddha calculated the damage done to the Emperor’s ear. You remember his words, ‘If this is a plot there may be method in their madness’?’
‘I do, yes. What of it?’
‘Have you heard almost the same words anywhere before?’
‘There’s a familiarity about them but it slips my mind where I...’
‘Lord Polonius in Hamlet, Watson. ‘Though this be madness, yet there is method in’t’. Your General could only have picked up that phrase from attending a performance of Hamlet - nowhere else. And that had to be abroad. Under the Ch’ing any play involving regicide is forbidden under pain of an unpleasant death. The artful Yuán used the words to point the finger at the Emperor, yet in doing so he over-reached. He fingered himself instead.’
A hand stretched out towards me.
‘Now you must cross my palm with silver, Watson. Let’s see, 37 times 50 is 2,100 cash.’
I reached for my wallet.
‘1,850 cash, Holmes,’ I said. ‘Good try.’
Chapter XII
I Have Some Niggling Questions
An hour later Holmes and I lit up a couple of Trichinopoly cigars in the Temple’s pleasant gardens. A question was nagging at my mind.
I asked, ‘Holmes, can you explain why Li Lien-ying summoned me to examine the eunuch whose eardrum he’d just broken? Such an unremarkable event would otherwise never have come to my attention. If a crime is being committed, as you suppose, never before have the perpetrators notified us ahead of time that one is in train. If the Chief Eunuch hadn’t sent for me you would not now be looking with such suspicion on the damage to the Emperor’s ear.’
‘They needed to do so for one quite simple reason, Watson, to work out precisely the pressure required to shatter an eardrum without causing the victim’s immediate death. They called you in because they knew you had an otoscope with you. You confirmed Li’s cuff had shattered the tympanic membrane.’
Not for the first time my comrade’s explanation left me more bewildered than ever. Why would a band of regicides be so keen not to kill their Royal prey?
***
After a walk I returned to my quarters as evening fell and settled on a comfortable couch. The tense atmosphere prevalent in the Forbidden City was affecting me. I was keen to escape into the small collection of stories which accompanied me on my travels. I opened Clark Russell’s The Mystery of the Ocean Star with its breath of distant seas and the echo of surf murmuring on sandy beaches, an adventure my deceased wife Mary and I used to read together. In an instant the author would transport us to the sweltering climate of the Caribbean. I was able by now to murmur the opening paragraphs by heart.
‘There was a long swell from the westward, which came along in slopes of liquid violet, so polished that the glory of the sunshine slipped from one deeply-dark blue brow to another, as though indeed it were a substantial gushing of fiery gold sliding over the heads of rolling hills of glass...the whole length of the steamer The Guide had barely steamed out clear from one of the largest of the low clouds when the chief officer sighted a low sail four points on the port bow.’
‘...four points on the port bow,’ I murmured. ‘...four points on the port bow...’
My eyes were closing. ‘...on the port bow’ slipped from my lips for a further time. I fell asleep.
Suddenly I was in darkest Africa, machete in hand, hacking at vegetation in a jungle so dense I could barely make out the ground four feet in front of me. Beneath my feet maidenhair ferns grew out of the drenched black leaf-mould. At every step heavy drops of water fell from grey beards of lichen above my head. Exhaustion and panic were setting in. I knew I was hours from potable water and a degree of safety. A cow-herd of elephants with calves was dangerously near. I heard a terrifying trumpeting. They had picked up my scent. The ground shook like a cavalry charge at Waterloo. The machete disappeared, to be replaced by a Gew 98 bolt action Mauser. I fired blindly, shot after shot, the internal magazine somehow reloading itself, yet still the cow-herd came surging forward. The sturdy trees I hoped would provide protection transformed themselves into soaring bamboo ten yards high, bending like a crashing wave as the screaming pachyderms swept down on me. I threw myself to the earth, waiting for my doom.
Instead of rampaging elephants a most hideous creature burst out of the bamboo, bloated in appearance, purplish in colour. It ran at me simian-like on two legs and the knuckles of one hand. It was Stamford, the dresser from Barts Hospital many years ago. Blood seeped from mouth and nose. Only his left eye was sighted, the other socket empty, its eyeball dangling five inches below, still attached to the optic nerve. He hurled himself at me mouthing words in a strange language. In terror I turned the rifle on him, firing from the hip.
The rat-tat of the Mauser turned into a sharp knocking. A familiar voice said, ‘I hope I’m not inconveniencing you, Watson, but I have a question.’
Holmes was standing at the door dressed in his favourite purple dressing-gown, hands in pockets, smoking his pipe. I blinked over at my comrade. ‘What is it?’ I replied, grateful to be awoken from the nightmare.
‘We know General Yuán was given a tour of the Royal Pavilion. He then attended Hamlet on the Pavilion Pier - what else did he do after that?’
I struggled to a sitting position to think.
‘I imagine the chauffeur drove him to Sherborne School to visit his sons,’ I replied.
With growing exasperation, I went on, ‘But I assume you didn’t wake me...’, I peered at my pocket-watch, ‘...at two in the morning just to ask what Yuán...’
‘Didn’t I, Watson?’ came the amused reply. ‘Then you must still be wrestling with whatever apparition was alarming you in your sleep.’
His hand came forward holding a piece of paper with an encoded message.
‘Can you forsake bed and tales of the high seas and get an urgent request to Mycroft to supply us in detail what Yuán did after leaving the Pier and arriving at his sons’ school in Dorset? A vital clue could await us in that gap.’
Holmes halted at the door.
‘One last thing. You have observed the Great Ancestress in the open more than I. How often does she wear a beizi?’
‘I’ve seen her outdoors on three occasions. Each time she was wearing a yellow beizi.’
Holmes’s interrogation was not over.
‘Were the capes unadorned like the one the Emperor was wearing?’
‘No, not at all. Each was heavily embellished - coloured precious stones and pearls for peonies. Leaves of green jade. I can show you a photograph taken with my Lizars. In particular her official Imperial Yellow Gown is embroidered everywhere with gold dragons.’
‘Really, Watson, you excel yourself! I confess, my dear fellow, that I am very much in your debt.’
‘Why are you so concerned about such an inconsequential matter as Court fashion?’
‘You know my methods, Watson! We’ve remarked before on the lack of adornment on the beizi she sent to the Emperor. Just that single embroidered patch. You’ve just confirmed she never wears a plain yellow overdress. If the beizi she sent the Emperor had been made for her own use, why wasn’t the larger part of the yellow plastered over with jewels and pearls and covered with embroidery and ribbon? Why just the single roundel on the back?’
Yet again my comrade’s ability for observation was proving as opaque as his reasoning. He continued, ‘She knew there were oilskins aboard if the air proved especially damp. So I ask myself, why did she press him to wear the beizi on the water?’
‘I must seem thick-headed to you, Holmes,’ I responded. ‘Evidently the body of facts we’ve accrued has conveyed a good deal more to you than it has to me yet I can’t say you’re getting anywhere.’
Holmes’s nostrils dilated with an animal lust for the chase.
‘Quite the opposite, Watson, I believe I can now say who sanctioned the attack. The question remains, can we prove it?’
‘Either I shall be proved right,’ he went on, ‘or to quote Hamlet - ‘It is a damned ghost that w
e have seen, And my imaginations are as foul, As Vulcan’s stithy’.’
I waved the piece of paper with the coded message. I made one last effort.
‘This information you seek about the General...I can see no earthly reason why he would have anything to do with an explosion perforating the Emperor’s ear.’
By now Holmes’s back was turned. As he left the room I called out, ‘I would trust Yuán as I trust myself.’
The door re-opened.
‘Would you indeed, Watson? I’ve said it before, there are some trees which grow to a certain height and suddenly develop an eccentricity. You see it in humans. What do you know of Yuán’s ancestry? Take our old enemy Colonel Moran. Eton College. The University of Oxford. A distinguished military career, an honourable soldier. No hint of the arch-criminal-to-be we confronted. Such a sudden turn to evil must stand for some strong influence which comes into the line of a man’s pedigree. Effectively each of us becomes the epitome of the history of our own family.’
This time the door almost closed before Holmes’s face reappeared for the second time.
‘There is one more point I’d like you to ponder.’
‘Which is?’
‘The patch of embroidery on the beizi was stitched with the elytra of jewel-beetles. It so happens I studied that beetle family before I studied Apis mellifera, the European honey bee. After months of investigation I discovered something unusual about the wing-cases. I wrote a monogram on the subject. The microscopic texture in the cuticle selectively reflects specific frequencies of light.’
The inflection in his voice put a special emphasis on his next words, ‘Especially in the ultra-violet spectrum’.
‘Reflects specific frequencies of light, do they, Holmes!’ I scoffed, reaching for my outdoor clothes. ‘I can’t imagine how I’ve managed to live a long life without knowing that.’
‘Especially in the ultra-violet spectrum,’ he repeated.
I stared at the page of letters and numbers. As I stepped out of the Temple I muttered aloud, ‘Specific frequencies of light, especially in the ultra-violet spectrum’. What on earth had ultra-violet got to do with the price of tea in China?
