Sherlock Holmes and The Nine-Dragon Sigil

by Tim Symonds

  ***

  Holmes looked up expectantly as I entered.

  ‘Do we have a reply about the General’s movements after Brighton?’ he asked.

  I replied, trying not to sound triumphal, ‘We do, but just as I thought, you’ll gain nothing by it. He simply went to his sons’ school. It’s near Sherborne Castle.’

  The eyes took on a steely look.

  ‘The journey itself, Watson?’

  ‘I’m surprised that something so mundane seems so palpably to have gripped your imagination,’ I ventured defensively.

  ‘But nevertheless you have an answer?’

  I shook my head, embarrassed.

  ‘Only that it’s about 160 miles from Brighton to Sherborne, but why you should...’

  Holmes broke in angrily, ‘I asked for every detail. As yet you’ve failed to supply them. Get back at once to Mycroft. Find out who chauffeured Yuán. I want every detail of the route they took. Did they stop anywhere on the way? If so, where, for how long, and what took place?’

  ‘Really, Holmes,’ I responded. ‘You’re making a mountain out of a mole-hill.’ Sarcastically I asked, ‘Shall I find out whether it rained?’

  ‘Every detail, Watson! No matter how mundane.’

  The amended reply with more detail was brought to my quarters the same evening. I decoded it and set off to inform Holmes. He was sitting in the subdued light of a lamp, eyes closed.

  ‘Ah hah!’ my comrade exclaimed, beckoning me in. The pipe pointed towards me like a single-shot Flobert pistol. ‘You have an answer already! Excellent. He left the Pavilion Pier...what then?’

  ‘Nothing of any special interest. I’m afraid you’ll find it disappointing,’ I replied. I was perversely pleased to be proved right. ‘At one point they diverted a few miles to Buckler’s Hard in the New Forest. Yuán wanted to see where England built the ships which destroyed Napoleon Bonaparte.’

  I had myself visited this now-sleepy little village on the western bank of the Beaulieu River. Its sheltered waterfront situation and abundance of oak, beech and elm trees from the surrounding forest offered the perfect location to build large timber vessels. In 1805 three ships built from the New Forest’s vast tree trunks saw action at the Battle of Trafalgar - the Euryalus, the Swiftsure and Admiral Nelson’s favourite ship, the Agamemnon.

  My comrade frowned.

  ‘Did they do anything, go anywhere else, except visit the old shipyards?’

  I shook my head.

  ‘And no, it didn’t rain,’ I joked.

  What an extraordinary genius my comrade had for minutiae, I reflected. It was not meant entirely as a compliment. Many were the occasions Holmes obliged me to recount in infinitesimal detail things that had not the faintest significance for any normal human-being.

  ‘I tell you Holmes,’ I began, ‘I can see it’s time we packed up and left for England. Really, you must abandon this absurd conspiracy theory. The whole thing - the crow blowing up on his shoulder - was an accident, a quirk. A jape at most. If there was malign intent, one thing is clear. The perpetrators could not have killed the Emperor or anyone else with that firework.’

  Holmes pointed at an easy chair.

  ‘Sit down and make yourself comfortable, Watson’ he said in an emollient tone. ‘Let me present the facts as we know them, one by one. We agree someone released a crow with a firework strapped to its leg. As you note but cannot explain, instead of flying straight up into the sky the bird chose to fly across open water and settle on the Emperor’s shoulder. As though calculated to the second, the Exploding Bamboo did its stuff, namely it detonated, shattering the royal eardrum. We know the firecracker was charged with black powder, not gelignite. The explosive had just the right amount of power to shatter the Emperor’s eardrum but not his skull. We also know the Emperor was wearing a mantle sent as a gift that morning by the Empress Dowager with an apologetic note. It took the place of a feng ling.

  We are in agreement on those facts. It’s at this point you and I branch away from each other. Take that beizi. You say the loan or gift of the cape was nothing more than a kindly gesture. I say together with ‘The Orchid Lady’s’ unexpected last-minute change of plan it was an essential component of a murderous plot.’

  Sensing an opportunity to recover my money I issued the challenge for a further wager.

  ‘Are you up for another bet, Holmes? Plot you win. Prank you lose?’

  ‘Accepted,’ came the prompt reply. ‘To repeat, the facts are not in dispute between us. It is only the conclusions which differ. I deduce a consequence: a plot against the Son of Heaven is in train but not yet consummated. If I’m proved wrong I’ll give way and return your 1850 cash.’

  ‘So where do we go from here?’ I asked.

  ‘We must trigger more facts. No harm can come from getting the Emperor to take part in a little charade. Both you and he must indulge me a little. What’s your latest diagnosis of the Emperor’s eardrum?’

  ‘He should be well enough to go outside in a matter of days.’

  ‘Say by Friday?’

  ‘I would think by Friday, yes,’ I replied.

  Holmes uncapped his fountain-pen and bent over a sheet of sermon paper. He began to sketch lightly like an artist painting silhouettes on ivory.

  ‘Who’s this for?’ I asked, looking over his shoulder at the page of logograms. ‘And what does it say?’

  ‘This message is to be delivered to your royal patient. As from the Hour of the Monkey this Friday, you recommend a return to his habit of resting in the orchard, but he must be sure to retain the bandaging exactly as it is.’

  I was to send the chit to the Emperor via the eunuch ever at the ready outside our front door.

  ‘And the Hour of the Monkey is?’ I asked.

  ‘Between three and five in the afternoon. It’s when monkeys become very lively.’

  ‘But Holmes,’ I demurred, pointing at the door, ‘you know perfectly well the lad reports our every move direct to the Old Buddha herself. Within minutes she will be...’

  ‘...apprised of the note’s contents? Just so. Meantime I want you to get the Emperor’s faithful eunuch Kou to hot-foot it here as soon as darkness falls.’

  Kou was to make it clear his master must lie in the orchard with the good ear upwards, the bandage covering it still.

  ‘No matter who approaches, the Son of Heaven is to lie as insensible as a French wax-work. Under no circumstances should your patient risk falling asleep without pressing a cotton wad into the damaged ear and putting that ear to the pillow. That way we shall leave nothing to chance.’

  ‘Ostensibly, Watson,’ Holmes continued, ‘you are summoning Kou here to pick up some wads of sterile cotton for his master’s ear. In reality you are about to instruct him in the gentle art of Aeroscope photography. Tomorrow please inform the Empress Dowager in person that the Emperor is recovering his strength and inching towards a full recovery. Emphasise the eardrum has still some way to go before it seals but improves by the day, and that you have advised a return to his customary outdoor rest starting this Friday.’

  ‘You insist a plot’s in train, Holmes,’ I replied. ‘Can you at least give me a clue - what rôle can an orchard play in an assassin’s thinking?’

  With an infuriating ‘All in good time, Watson,’ my comrade turned away.

  A Palace messenger handed me a package at the door of my quarters. It contained the copy of The Hound of the Baskervilles, returned in the clamshell box. The Emperor must have read it deep into the night. There were signs his already-poor sleep had become even more disturbed. Drops of wax from red candles had seeped into the pages.

  ***

  Friday night arrived. Holmes and I sat waiting. A tap came on the door. An excited Kou Liancai slipped into the room with the Aeroscope carefully disguised as an or
dinary box. The trusty servant had quickly grasped how to use the camera’s simple mechanism and clambered up the pipa tree, sufficiently hidden but with a direct view of his master at rest. Kou handed the camera to me together with the short wad of cotton from the Emperor’s good ear. The wad was saturated with a liquid. I placed it in a sterile glass tube for Holmes to examine.

  The photographer-in-residence at the Peking Western Gentleman’s Club offered me his dark room, equipped with a small tank, Tabloid chemicals and running water. The sequences sprang to life - the Shishaquita afloat, British graves in the Russian cemetery, the pagoda designed by the Emperor Yung-lo. A panoramic view of the Summer Palace. And finally the orchard scene.

  Whatever I had expected to see - if I had expected anything unusual at all - could not in my wildest imagination have lived up to the scene that met my eyes. I could barely restrain a shout of surprise and horror. My hands shook as over the next several hours I transferred the film frame by frame on to tough, flexible opaque cards for the Mutoscope.

  ***

  Holmes was pacing up and down in his quarters when I returned in the early hours. I fitted the flicker-book into the Mutoscope and silently invited him to look. He turned the wheel to set the machine in motion. He watched the flickering images to the end and announced with an expression of grim satisfaction, ‘Well done, Watson. We’ve caught them with their trousers down. However, we need to pin down precisely which of them is the mastermind behind it.’

  He pointed at the Mutoscope.

  ‘On this evidence alone, would a jury find the Empress Dowager or the General or Li - or all three - guilty of attempted murder as you and I charge them?’

  ‘Doesn’t the evidence speak for itself?’ I replied. ‘We have the film of those three creeping up to a sleeping man and one of them - Li - pouring a liquid into the Emperor’s ear. We expect that liquid to be...’

  ‘...a deadly poison, yes, but how will you prove the alleged culprits knew that?’

  ‘You know perfectly well, Holmes - we can take the cotton wad and test it.’

  ‘...and offer that as conclusive evidence?’ came the quick reply. ‘Unfortunately, Watson, it requires a definitive connection between the circumstance and the fact. For example, with fingerprint evidence, a jury must be able to make a connection between evidence that the accused handled some object linked to the crime and the commission of the crime itself. Or in our case, how do we prove the cotton wad is the wad from the Emperor’s ear? We cannot. The eunuch can only say he brought us a cotton wad the Emperor handed to him. When we received it, it was soaked with liquid, yes, but was it a toxin or merely sweat? We shall need an admission before we can link the crime to the criminal. My money is on the General. He is an ingenious and resourceful man - yet not sufficiently far-sighted since he has taken risks that could have been avoided.’

  ‘What about Kou?’ I asked. ‘Couldn’t he be of value before our mythical jury?’

  ‘And condemn him to a swift and terrible death? How many hours would you give the trusty servant to live if he admitted he hid with the camera in the pipa tree? Not for a moment must we underestimate the General. He will make every effort to exculpate himself. ‘Il faut être le plus malin.’ We must be the cleverest. We will need to counter Yuán on every point. Not just whether it was a poison but the origin of the toxin and particularly how it was obtained.’

  As Holmes moved away from the Mutoscope he said, ‘I’ll collect my cash winnings in the morning, if you don’t mind. First we shall need Wang’s help, though I fear he has already become compromised enough for his own good.’

  The voice lowered.

  ‘One more thing, my old friend. You and the General have developed a professional, even personal camaraderie. Quite shortly we are going to make a bitter enemy of him. If we are to preserve the Emperor’s life we must preserve our own. You as well as I may find our lives in danger. Avoid all solitary and unfrequented places, every by-alley. When we confront him - as soon we must - have your pistol on you. Don’t be afraid to use it.’

  ***

  Again and again throughout the night the dramatic scene in the orchard ran through my mind. I awoke early and eschewing breakfast went straight to Holmes’s quarters. He was bent over an improvised chemical bench rigged from a recessed-leg table. The top was covered by beakers, reagent bottles, filter flasks and absorption tubes, presumably supplied by Wang who nodded a welcome at me from a seat nearby. Two Bunsen-burners were on the go, using a source of almost pure methane, one flame blue, the other yellow. Near at hand lay a small bunch of leaves, stalks and roots of plants and some fungi.

  Holmes greeted me without looking up. His free hand gestured towards at a ceramic mortar and wood-and-porcelain pestle. Lying in the bowl was a shrivelled three-legged toad.

  ‘There’s a desiccated creature in the mortar, Watson. Can you grind it up as fine as possible?’

  ‘What’s this, Holmes?’ I exclaimed. ‘Surely you aren’t copying the Wayward Sisters in Shakespeare’s Macbeth? ‘Round about the cauldron go; In the poison’d entrails throw. Toad, that under cold stone, Days and nights has thirty-one, Swelter’d venom sleeping got...’?’

  ‘We’re making a traditional preparation of the infamous bane gu,’ came the reply. ‘Gu or Jincan is a venom-based poison associated with cultures of south China, particularly Nanyue.’

  The word Gu, he explained, was the ancient Chinese symbol for extreme pathological yin - the dark side of life, the worst nightmare of any human being. It represented darkness, rottenness, slithering vermin, poisonous snakes, betrayal, black magic, backstabbing murder and in medical terms, progressive organ decay accompanied by torturous pain and insanity.

  My comrade looked up.

  ‘In other words, life in the Forbidden City. Wang here says gu is believed capable of inflicting death from a distance, and with excruciating slowness. The victim of these uncanny machinations appears to die from a chronic disease, soit’s a popular way to kill without exposing the attacker.’

  ‘But why this toad?’ I asked, picking up the grizzly specimen by one of the three legs. ‘Is it especially poisonous?’

  ‘It should be,’ came the amused reply. ‘Wang paid good money for it. It’s the survivor of a very nasty battle. Venomous snakes, scorpions, centipedes, spiders and that toad were imprisoned together inside a closed container. In the ensuing struggle each devours another or is devoured until the venom from all is concentrated into a single survivor. That animal is deemed the most venomous. The creature is killed, dried, and this one is now ready for you to grind into a powder for comparing with the assassins’ poison.’

  Chapter XIII

  A Matter of Which Poison

  I returned to Holmes’s make-shift laboratory after my morning stint at the surgery to find him examining a toadstool. He had tested the pulverised toad and found it lacking in any toxin. Wang had now secretly purchased examples of China’s most toxic plants, including our old friend Amanita phalloides, the Deathcap. The fatality rate for Amanitin poisoning was about 50%. A single ounce or half a cap was enough to kill. No matter on which Continent it’s found, the infamous Deathcap is the most poisonous fungus known to Man. The all-white version in Holmes’s hand was known as the ‘East Asian Destroying Angel’.

  Holmes held it up.

  ‘As you well know, Watson, the mycotoxins in this have been involved in the majority of human deaths from mushroom poisoning, possibly including the deaths of Roman Emperor Claudius and the Holy Roman Emperor Charles VI.’

  Holmes took a vial from the bench.

  ‘This vial contains a sample of my own blood.’

  He cut away a portion of the cotton swab retrieved from the Emperor’s ear, dropping a small piece into the test-tube and shook it gently, holding it up to the light. The three of us watched intently. If the poison was from the deadly fungus, the fresh
blood would almost at once turn into a clear, transparent liquid.

  ‘Watson, you will have done this a hundred times in India, no doubt,’ Holmes murmured.

  I nodded assent. As a medical officer in India alongside Surgeon-Major Alexander Francis Preston I grew skilled at performing post-mortems when poisoning was suspected.

  Five seconds went by. Again Holmes shook the vial. Ten seconds. Twenty seconds. The blood stayed bright red.

  ‘Nothing!’ I exclaimed.

  Holmes put the vial down. He muttered with an air almost of satisfaction, ‘They are as diabolically clever as I thought. I didn’t expect them to use the Deathcap. The toxin is so powerful the Emperor could be found dead even before the assassins had time to return to their lairs. If they’re as cunning as I believe them to be, they would want a poison to take several days to do its deadly work. Otherwise why merely shatter an eardrum in the first place? Their plan would work best if the Emperor’s manifestations were indistinguishable from symptoms of natural illness.’

  We still lacked the one detail we required to prove our case. Where could the poison have come from? To see Holmes baffled was a novelty. His knowledge of pharmacology was immense. When the Royal Society of Chemists welcomed him into their ranks he entertained the audience by remarking wryly, ‘We English are especially famed for our love of churchyards and country gardens, habitats rich in snowdrops, monkshood and foxgloves, plants whose neurotoxins and cell toxins are so utterly deadly they are known in the criminal world as the impecunious assassin’s heart-stoppers. I have on occasion made a very good living from their improper use, though not by me, of course. You may enjoy reading my friend Dr. Watson’s chronicle on the Camberwell Poisoning Case.’

  Holmes pointed at a book lying open on a chair. ‘I’ve been going through Instructions to Coroners written by Song Ci. Our friend Wang here has translated it for us. Song Ci has a way with words. You would learn something for crafting your chronicles from the first sentence alone. Will you, please, Watson?’