by Tim Symonds
‘Then what, Holmes?’
A slight smile flickered at the corners of his mouth. He pointed to my note-book.
‘Did you write up our conversation about jewel-beetle elytra and ultra-violet light?’
I flipped back through the pages.
‘Yes, and what mumbo-jumbo it was!’ I remarked.
By now the train was going at speed. Holmes reached into a pocket for a briar. He began to thumb tobacco into it. Soon the blue smoke was curling upwards, making a sudden dart to the open window as it was sucked away.
‘I am quite pleased with myself over this, Watson,’ he continued. ‘Earlier this year I chanced across an article by Hajime Matsubara, an ornithologist connected with the Japanese Bird Research Association. Matsubara put forward the proposition that a crow’s kinetic vision is highly developed, to the point the bird can be trained to identify a particular object by UV signal - for example someone wearing jewel-beetle ornamentation which reflects UV strongly. If Matsubara’s work is well known in Japan, it would most likely be well-known to the E-D’s bird experts here in China.’
‘My prophetic soul,’ I breathed. ‘That was quite astonishingly clever of you, Holmes.’
‘I thought so too,’ came the not altogether self-mocking reply.
‘One last thing,’ I said. ‘You took two very considerable risks in settling this affair to your satisfaction, Holmes. The first I accept was forced on you. You had to convince General Yuán we had a stack of copies of the events Kou filmed or we might be dead by now.’
‘The second?’
‘You told Yuán point-blank he had purchased a book of Britain’s poisonous plants. That was a shot in the dark. You knew nothing of the sort. It paid off but it could as easily have wrecked...’
‘Not such a shot in the dark as you might suppose, Watson,’ came the reply. ‘The plan to kill the Emperor was well in hand even before Yuán was in Brighton preparing to continue on to Sherborne. He must have been deliberating over whether the Emperor’s death at the order of the Old Buddha and the Obstructionists would have the result they intended. Murdering the Emperor entailed severe personal risk. It might trigger an uprising among the Modernists and cause the overthrow of the Old Buddha instead - himself along with her.
At that stage the plot was more straight-forward. They planned to use an explosive powerful enough to blow the Emperor’s head off and sink the Shishaquita. They could announce the boiler exploded, taking the Emperor and Kou to the bottom of the lake, but the Emperor was known to take a particular interest in the river-boat. Servicing and checking the boiler and engine would be a very high priority. Suddenly, there before the General, on the Pavilion Pier in Brighton, in the opening moments of Hamlet, the idea for a whole new plan fell into place. King Hamlet’s brother, the murderer, had faced exactly the same dilemma - how to make the victim’s death look due to unhappy but natural causes? Shakespeare supplied the answer. By the use of a slow-acting but deadly plant toxin.
Yuán would need to check whether pouring a poison into the ear would do its work, but a high-ranking officer has access to the finest medical science. He would be told the eardrum had first to be shattered. Shakespeare spoke of ‘cursed hebenon’ so there must be deadly plants in England, but how could Yuán identify them? In the event it was easy enough. China is a literate society par excellence. He is a literate man. The obvious answer was to hurry to the best book-shop in town. Lo and behold, at your suggestion he was going to visit Blackwell’s anyway, to purchase Wisden’s Almanack for his sons.’
Chapter XV
Holmes Unfolds the Last Piece of the Jigsaw
Our train halted for lunch conveniently by a wayside tavern. The dish of roe deer was accompanied by small root vegetables, bamboo shoots, lily, Chinese yam, and mountain pears. Over a dessert Holmes mused, ‘You may have noted over the years I’m not a whole-souled admirer of womankind but I must at least modify that statement. It’s no longer entirely true.’
‘Might you be referring to the E-D by any chance?’ I asked impishly.
He nodded.
‘She has many of the pleasing traits of the Manchu,’ Holmes continued, ‘yet if you become virtual ruler of the Middle Kingdom at the age of twenty-four how should you learn to put away the hideous barbarities of the Forbidden City’s ways? She was trained early in life in the traditions of a court where human life counts for little.’
For a long while I sat in silence, my spirit troubled. Finally, a sigh burst from me. It caught my comrade’s attention.
‘My dear fellow,’ he exclaimed, ‘you’re not nostalgic already for the open sewers of the Purple City...’
‘Not in the slightest, Holmes,’ I answered brusquely. ‘I’m troubled because we suffered a defeat. We return to England and the Emperor may die at any time. What do we tell Sir Edward Grey? And Haldane? That we abandoned the Emperor to the kindness of the E-D’s heart, the woman whose pitiless and brutal capacities you have just described so well?’
I reiterated emphatically, ‘Failed. Utterly. Sir Edward asked you to ensure the Emperor survives two years at least, until matters between us and a certain lunatic in Berlin become clearer, or the Empress Cixi herself passes away.’
I pointed back towards the Forbidden City.
‘Yet here we are, running away, tails between our legs. By now the Mutoscope cards are smoke, the Aeroscope dashed to pieces. We have abandoned the Emperor to a desperate end, conceivably within days, at most weeks of our departure.’
My companion’s eyebrows lifted an eloquent half-inch. He perused me without the slightest expression of dismay. With what struck me as unseemly playfulness he said, ‘Failed, Watson? Nonsense. Did I forget to tell you about my arrangements with General Yuán?’
Holmes rose to put his head out of the window, pulling it back with ‘Well, I think we’re near enough out of the Old Buddha’s control. Would you like to know what we agreed?’
‘My good friend,’ I answered, between gritted teeth, ‘how very clever of you to divine my curiosity! Are you sure you aren’t a Consulting Detective?’
***
Holmes replenished the tobacco in his briar.
‘Settle back in your seat. Comfortable, aren’t they! These carriages are made in Birmingham, you know.’
He pointed at the floor.
‘There’s a brass plate saying so...’
‘Holmes!’ I yelped, pencil at the ready. ‘Do get on with it!’
At which the last piece of the jigsaw was unfolded. Even now I consider it the gravest risk Europe’s most famous Consulting Detective took in his long and near-flawless career.
‘Above all,’ he began, ‘I had to obtain the Great Ancestress’s word of honour. You know how much weight she places on propitiating the Great Ancestors. I told the General in no uncertain terms the E-D must give her solemn word on the souls of those very ancestors. Not one hair of the Emperor’s head should be hurt for a period of at least two years.’
‘And you would take her at this word of hers?’ I exclaimed, aghast. ‘Her word alone?’
He chuckled.
‘Her word alone, no. I said I would require her signature on an Imperial Decree. It was to be written in the official manner, on special Imperial yellow paper, the text written in her own hand in Manchu, Chinese and Mongol, and signed in vermilion ink from cinnabar in the same manner as the Emperor.’
He retired the briar to a pocket in his Poshteen Long Coat and took out a cigarette.
‘I mention vermilion ink for a reason. You see, she places a great deal of importance on Imperial Decrees, except Wang told me she has a very cunning trick when she doesn’t want a particular Decree to retain its force. She signs with pencil which can fade within weeks.’
Dismayed by his complacency I demanded, ‘Why would so powerful a ruler bother to obey? She would co
nsider your stipulation utter insolence.’
He leaned back and blew little wavering rings of smoke.
‘You ask what will make an Empress Dowager stick to her promise? In a word, mockery, Watson. An ounce of derision is worth a dozen broadsides from a Dreadnought’s guns. It’s true there’s no way the Empress Dowager and General Yuán can be overthrown while every man in China fears them but they would fall in a trice if four hundred million citizens mock them. Mockery is a weapon of such power not even the most intractable dictator can withstand it. Keeping Face, fear of shame, and dread of ridicule are more deeply ingrained in the Chinese character than in any other nation under the sun. The Old Buddha could visualise the reaction of every governor of every province of China if they watched your film. The soldiery of the New Army. Every weathercock Mandarin. Even the three thousand eunuchs in the Forbidden City. And what of the world’s ambassadors? The Empress Dowager and the General tip-toeing towards a sleeping Emperor to watch Li Lien Ying pour poison into an ear they’ve deliberately shattered a week or so before - only to discover they hadn’t poured it into the shattered ear after all! Yuán took my demands to Her Majesty. An hour later he returned with the response.’
‘Which was?’ I queried.
‘The Empress had agreed with one non-negotiable condition.’
‘Being?’
‘That in turn we must accept her terms.’
Holmes pointed up to the racks above our heads.
‘That she should be allowed to shower upon us every conceivable high honour available to her.’
My comrade paused to observe the incredulity writ large on my face.
‘Why, Watson,’ he continued, ‘do you think the Old Buddha plied us with all the honours and mementos she could heap upon us? When she conferred the Ancestral Rank of the First Class of the First Order for Three Generations on me she whispered in my ear, ‘Sir Sherlock, you and Dr, Watson came like strangers from the farthest star in the firmament. You interrupted the flow of our history. You gave life back to the Emperor. In doing so you have rekindled hope among the Modernists, thereby endangering my throne. You have imprisoned my soul in that Mu.to.scope. Yet I can’t have my people gaining the impression I was involved in a dastardly plot against the Son of Heaven. I must therefore be seen publicly to shower you with these gifts and honours, as your reward for saving the Emperor’s life’.’
Still chortling, Holmes repeated Yuán’s account of the meeting in detail:
‘‘I tell you, Sir Sherlock,’ the General told me, ‘it wasn’t easy. First she looked into the Mutoscope with fear and loathing. Then she stood back in complete silence. Then she shouted, ‘The flicker-book must be destroyed at once!’ I put forward the dangers to Her Imperial Majesty’s Empire - even to her Dynasty - if we did not accede to your demands, the demands, I pretended, of Sir Edward Grey. I said I feared Sir Edward too was ready with his battleships to come and destroy the Forbidden City. She said no-one imposes demands on the ruler of the Celestial Kingdom. ‘Destroy the flicker-book!’ she repeated. I told her we could do that but there were more copies of the film. ‘Destroy them too!’ she blazed. I explained they were at the British Embassy awaiting Sir Sherlock’s orders to distribute them to each of the Great Powers.
After a long silence she asked me your terms. I told her she would have to put in writing that she wouldn’t have the Emperor put to death for at least two years. I tell you, Sir Sherlock,’ Yuán went on, ‘it evoked the most spectacular display of the Divine Wrath I’ve ever seen. The Benevolent Countenance went black as thunder. Her eyes were like shooting daggers. Her lip fell. The veins in her forehead bulged. She showed her teeth as if suffering from lockjaw.’
Holmes continued, ‘Yuán ended with, ‘I may be a General in command of half a million men but the cold concentrated fury nearly scared the soul out of me’.’
‘But did she agree to the Emperor’s safety?’ I asked.
‘Yes, but not for la longue durée.’
I persisted, ‘Has she guaranteed two years, at least?’
‘She has.’
‘In writing?’I asked, openly delighted.
He pointed to a pocket in his Poshteen Long coat.
‘In writing,’ came the reply. ‘He’s safe for the while. However, as our friend Shakespeare said, ‘If you can look into the Seeds of Time, and say which Grain will Grow and which will Not, speak then unto me’.’
***
I fell into a deep reverie to the soothing motion of the train and awoke to see my companion staring out of the carriage window at the immense landscape. I asked, ‘And what of the Empress Dowager? When she dies, will China have a better future, do you suppose?’
Holmes shrugged.
‘We must give this remarkable woman credit. She may be the ruler of a degenerate Dynasty that has long outlived its usefulness, a law unto herself, but look how she comes out of every Palace intrigue with both feet on the ground. I wager when she leaves the scene she will do so with a steadfast and Imperial dignity.’
‘And General Yuán?’
‘A most remarkable man. By no means has the world heard the last of him. He regards the rest of us as ants and termites completely at his disposal. Duplicity is his stratagem. When it suits him, he will betray and usurp the Manchu dynasty with hardly a second thought.’
It was late afternoon. We wended our way along the corridor to the Dining car. Over the entrée I picked up our earlier topic.
‘And what now of England’s rôle in China?’ I asked Holmes.
His hand swept across the broad landscape.
‘London has control over more than ten million square miles and a fifth of the world’s population. It creaks already. We don’t need to add another four hundred million Chinese. Otherwise I would have let the plot succeed.’
‘And handed the flick-book to England’s tai-pans and Old China Hands?’
‘Yes. They would have forced the Prime Minister to make a choice - let China sink into violent civil war or incorporate the Sacred Earth And Divine Land into the British Empire.’
***
Back in our private compartment I glanced at the luggage rack above my companion’s head. The Old Buddha had made sure many wonderful things both inexpensive and costly had been showered on us. To the side of the camp-stool sat my travelling tin-box with ‘John H. Watson, M. D. Late Indian Army’ in flaking gold paint on the lid. It was weighted down with the nine thousand taels of silver paid to me by General Yuán ‘for professional services’ rendered to China’s New Army.
Next to it were two other pieces of luggage. In the one suitcase were further souvenirs. In the second case were more gifts. These included a signed photograph of the E-D taken with my plate camera with a marginal note ‘Dr. Watson to deliver in person to His Majesty King-Emperor Edward’.
Only slightly less exotic than the myriad gifts was an item bought from my own pocket at Mycroft’s request - 10lbs of Da Hong Pao oolong tea, handmade from leaves withered, tumbled, curled and baked in small batches over charcoal.
I looked up at the familiar tin-box containing the very generous payment. On my return to England I would order the American luxury Aerocar with the air-cooled 24 horse power engine. I could then visit Cordings to be measured for a new tweed jacket. A sunny weekend would see me driving the monster automobile to the Gatwick Races, a copy of the ‘Pink ‘un’ (the Sporting Times) tucked into the glove-compartment.
I heard Holmes’s voice.
‘You mustn’t, Watson,’ he admonished.
‘Mustn’t what?’ I countered.
‘For as long as we’ve known each other you have waged and lost your Army pension on the ponies. You mustn’t take these earnings to the races,’ he said, a finger pointing upwards at my battered old tin-box. ‘You’ll lose the lot.’
‘Holmes!’ I gasped, ‘
this is too much. You would certainly have been burned at the stake had you lived a few centuries ago. How well you read my...’
‘Not your mind, Watson! The expression of divine contentment on your face - it spells out ‘the horses’!’
Again we broke into helpless laughter.
***
The liner taking us across the ocean was named the Mongolia. I met Holmes on the promenade deck after overseeing the transport of our considerable impedimenta to the cabins. From under our feet came the deep, slow thrumming of the engines. The waters around us were as busy as the Thames at Wapping. Wherries plied between ocean shipping and the shore. Coasting vessels flew the red, white and black flag of the Kaiser’s mercantile marine.
‘Well,’ I said, a residual fear of sudden arrest dropping away, ‘soon we shall be steaming past the White Cliffs of Dover. Then you to your bee-hives!’
‘Indeed,’ Holmes replied. ‘And you to your surgery.’
As we uttered these cheery words a tender drew alongside the ship. A man dressed in Chinese Army uniform at about the level of Lieutenant appeared to recognise us. He waved, signalling he had a message. Once on deck he reached into a pocket and retrieved a document. It was a letter for Sherlock Holmes from General Yuán.
Holmes stretched out a hand. The subaltern stepped back sharply. He was adamant. ‘Sir Sherlock’ could read the letter but not take it in hand. The soldier had sworn an oath not to read its contents, and on pain of death he was to return it to the General.
For a minute Holmes peered at the script. Without a word he stepped back, inviting me to take his place.
Except for the heading ‘chéngwén’ (Memorandum) it was in English:
‘Dear Sir Sherlock, first may I wish you a pleasant voyage home. I hope soon other matters will distract you from our little contretemps. By now you will have discovered that when anyone manoeuvres for power in China he (or she) must risk everything on the turn of a card. Your faithful comrade-in-arms Dr. Watson will know there are crises where, as your Hamlet says, ‘My thoughts be bloody, or nothing worth’.
