Sherlock Holmes and The Nine-Dragon Sigil

Chapter VII I Reach Peking

Peach blossoms heralded the start of a new season when at last Peking appeared in the distance. My conveyance would enter the city by the Ch’ien-Men Gate, squeezing between clumps of the five thousand camels entering and leaving the citadel each day. I looked forward to catching up with Holmes and exchanging our news. Had he discovered anything of a plot against the Empress Dowager Cixi or her nephew, the ‘Son of Heaven’?

I stared forward as the walls came nearer. The Chinese believe good spirits cross space at a height of 100 feet. No building, not even the Drum Tower, approaches this height for fear of obstructing the spirit entities and turning their goodwill to wrath.

I took out the first edition of Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland which Holmes’s brother Mycroft had given me. It fell open on the book-marked page:

‘But I don’t want to go among mad people,’ Alice remarked.

‘Oh, you can’t help that,’ said the Cat: ‘we’re all mad here. I’m mad. You’re mad.

‘How do you know I’m mad?’ said Alice.

‘You must be,’ said the Cat, ‘or you wouldn’t have come here.’

General Yuán had assigned a young Mandarin by the name of Wang Feng to meet me on my arrival and take me to my quarters where Holmes was already billeted. Wang was waiting just inside the Ch’ien-Men Gate. We greeted each other formally. Every whiff of air told me why he had chosen to stand almost obscured by a row of young Pittosporum trees on sale, all in full flower. Their perfume helped to mask the overpowering stench of the roadway.

Wang Feng presented a slight and elegant figure, approaching thirty years of age, hardly five feet five in height, with a well-shaped head, large brown eyes and rather drooping eyelids and a high nose. The high brow indicated well developed intellectual qualities. The whole gave him an aesthetic air. At my bidding he clambered aboard the conveyance and we set off. It was a relief to be accompanied by someone who spoke such excellent English.

Wang was, he told me, a jiancha yushi, an Investigating Censor, district magistrate, detective, prosecutor, judge, and jury all wrapped up into one. He claimed descent from the great Judge Bao but despite this his entry into public life had been slow. He was only on the first rung, his duties confined to directing locust-exterminating or purchasing sacrificial animals, ‘and destroying old paper money’ In time he could progress from minor to ‘chung’ - ordinary: ‘Purifying troops, salt control, inspecting frontier passes, supervising trade in tea and horses. That sort of thing.’

Apropos of nothing I could discern, Wang added, ‘I am a follower of Han Fei.’

‘I would be happy to meet him during my stay,’ I replied. ‘Can you arrange it?’

His sphinx-like countenance showed the faintest shadow of a smile.

‘It might be difficult,’ came the reply. ‘He died twenty-one centuries ago.’

Behind the city wall, temples fragrant with incense awaited us. Lacquer-screened verandahs overlooked pools of lotus flowers. We passed edifices with exotic names - Rain Flower Pavilion, Precious Moonlight Tower, Palace of Accumulated Elegance, Hall of Protecting Harmony, Studio of Eternal Spring - each finished with the seven preciosities: gold, silver, lapis lazuli, crystal, ruby, emerald and coral.

We moved ever-deeper into the teeming streets. The Chinese call the Forbidden City ‘Tse-Kin-Cheng’, the Purple City. Formerly only purple mortar was permitted in building it. The colour of the roof tiles was strictly stipulated, yellow for the royal palaces, green for the princes, and grey for all the others. The courtyards and the narrow alleys were filled with cotton-clad men and women, the men whether Manchu or Han dressed alike in the Manchu robe, the Manchu women distinguished from their Han sisterhood by distinctive hairstyles, platform shoes and long robes. A jumble of blue- and yellow-tiled palaces, pavilions and apartments formed the inner precincts.

Once inside the Great Within, I was struck by the large number of eunuchs with their peculiar walk, leaning slightly forward, legs close together, taking short, mincing steps, with the toes turned outward. Rendered sexually impotent by mutilation or removal of the external genitals, they served as palace menials, harem watch-dogs, and spies for rulers in most of the ancient world kingdoms. Whether the odd walk was a physical necessity or imposed upon eunuchs as a rule of conduct to denote their station Wang could not answer. A small gaggle of them ran alongside us, eyeing me, the younger ones freshly culled from the far provinces seeing a ‘big-nose’ foreigner for the first time.

Wang pointed at a small hut just outside a gate.

‘That’s the Western Gate of the Tzu Chin Palace. Where every one of these ‘crows’...’ he pointed at the excited gaggle, ‘...were emasculated. That’s where they became eunuchs.’

He turned to observe my expression.

‘I can take you to the next cutting, if you like. There’s always a small paying audience. As a doctor, you might be interested in the process.’

With a smile, he added, ‘We have greatly refined the operation since the Egyptians. They treated the wound with ashes and hot oil. We bandage the candidate’s stomach and upper thighs to reduce blood flow to his genitalia, then we wash his private parts three times with hot pepper-water as an anaesthetic and settle him on a heated couch. Very civilized, you see.’

‘And then?’ I asked with professional concern.

‘Apprentices hold him firmly around the waist and thighs and the knifer approaches him with a small, curve-bladed knife. The candidate is asked, ‘Hou huei bu hou huei?’ - ‘Will you regret or not regret this?’. Upon the young man replying he will not regret it, the knife does its work. Both the penis and the scrotum are severed. A plug is placed in the urethra. No drinking of any sort is allowed for three days. Then the plug is removed. If urine flows from the small hole in the wound, all is well. The operation has been a success. Otherwise he dies.’

It was also vital for the eunuch to keep his organs (his ‘precious’). They would be placed in his coffin at his death in the hope of hoodwinking the gods of the underworld into believing he was a complete man: otherwise he was doomed to appear in the next world as a she-mule.

Wang added, ‘Imagine. All that for just six taels.’

He pointed at his head.

‘Six taels is what I pay to keep the front of my skull shaved and my queue braided.’

I absorbed the sights and sounds with the ear of a newcomer or a blind man as we travelled deeper into the near-mythical city. The clack-clack-clack of a hollow bamboo announced a foot-doctor, the rattling huan tou a barber, a charcoal-seller’s drums. We passed an elderly man with a few blue threads in his queue. At my look of enquiry Wang whispered, ‘Recently widowed’.

By contrast with the eunuchs the themes of fertility and the production of sons proliferated throughout, the palaces decorated with bats, and persimmons, peaches and cranes, motifs signifying fecundity, longevity, harmony and happiness.

My guide pointed ahead at a temple on the far side of a large bazaar.

‘Your quarters,’ he said. ‘Remember its name - The Temple of the Myriad Years. Even those born in Peking get lost. That little hut next to it is a menial house where the eunuch guarding your doors will stay.’

To my delight, Holmes was awaiting my arrival, standing at the front o four temple accommodation. We arranged for Wang to return in the afternoon.

The moment we were alone I asked, ‘Well, Holmes, have you foiled a dastardly plot? If so, let me have a few days...’ I held up the Aeroscope camera, ‘...to see the sights. Then we can start on our journey home.’

Holmes’s face fell at my enquiry.

‘Not the jot or tittle of a plot, Watson,’ came the despondent reply. ‘So far my time has been wasted. It seems unimaginable anyone could get near the Emperor or the Empress Dowager with murder in mind. There are more than 3,000 eunuchs in the Forbidden City, united only in each being as greedy, jealous, manipulative, conniving, violent and selfish as the other. They know they will receive a vast reward in jade and baubles for raising the alarm. I wager every one of them is utterly untrustworthy, only out for themselves, incapable of loyalty even to those who grease their wretched palms, but 6,000 such eyes form a formidable barrier against any assassin.’

Dinner was brought to our Temple rooms on platters sealed in yellow silk wrappings, allegedly the left-overs from the Empress-Dowager’s evening meal. It was said her food was served solely on silverware because poisons react visibly on its surface. We were offered deer’s sinews, shark fin, shrimp eggs, fish brains, birds-nest soup, birds’ tongues, and what I discovered - too late - to be dog-meat. Macaroni was kept boiling hot on chafing-dishes on side-tables. A pearly white rice from Xiaozhan appeared daily on the lunch menu, accompanied by a vase of amber-coloured sweet wine made from glutinous rice, a speciality of the Chin-hwa district. We washed the meals down with a sort of blancmange of lotus-root flour and a jar each of special water from the Jade Spring Hills.

After breakfast the following morning, Holmes and I were sharing a pipe when a knock at the door signalled the presence of an Imperial messenger clutching a golden scroll. The High Court and Summer Palace had noted my arrival.

‘Written in the First Hand with the Vermillion Brush,’ Holmes observed.

The emissary’s hand moved puppet-like to unroll the springy parchment. We were to meet the Empress-Dowager and the Kuang-hsü Emperor at 10 o’clock at the Nei Wu Fu, the pavilion of the Imperial Household.

An hour later, each suitably attired in formal dress of frock coat and top hat, we walked to the waiting palanquin. Holmes stayed silent, replying to any question with a non-committal nod. I gazed out at the passing scene of compradors in long gowns of grey pongee silk, literary men in white grasscloth gowns, Chinese and western society women wearing hats of rice straw or blue harebell straw trimmed with costly ostrich plumes, velvet bows, osprey feathers and lace.

Soon we found ourselves among an array of flamboyant foreign dignitaries going in the same direction, carried by tasselled, braided, violet-cushioned sedan chairs of blue silk. All made way for the Acknowledged Merit in the person of a Mandarin with eight bearers and a crowd of mounted retainers, the latter holding bamboos to beat back the crowds and three-pronged forks for catching thieves by their clothing.

The Empress Dowager’s lair was a vast ensemble of palaces, lakes and gardens covering an area of 860 acres, almost five times the size of the Forbidden City, all meticulously sculptured by thousands of labourers into the most beautiful and harmonious views the human mind could conceive. The vermillion walls of the temples and palaces were built entirely of wood, with yellow-glazed tile roofs. Names and shapes and colours all had meanings. Yellow symbolized the sun and by extension Royalty.

We descended from our carriage. The corridors were crowded with functionaries in Court dress, civilians glittering with Orders, officers in uniform. A servant led us to an ante-chamber so opulent that it would put to shame the waiting-rooms of many of the Sovereigns of Europe.

Handshakes are an alien custom to the Chinese. Chinese and Manchu officials greet each other by clasping their hands together in front of their chests with a slight bow of the head. The full kowtow, kneeling and bowing so low as to have one’s head touching the ground, was expected for imperial audiences. A functionary informed us foreigners could go on one knee before the Ch’ing emperor, as we might before our own King. It was different for the Chinese, he explained. Neither the ‘Everlasting Lord’ (the young Emperor) nor Empress Dowager Cixi ever got into a motor-car because a chauffeur could not drive it while kneeling on both knees before them as was the obligatory custom.

We walked thirty paces into Their Majesties’ presence. Those few steps transported us from the present into a scene the mirror image of ‘The Arabian Thousand Nights And One Night’ where genies, bahamuts, magic carpets and magic lamps abounded.

The Emperor and the Empress Dowager sat at opposite ends of a low table on a dais. I looked at the woman who swayed ‘All under Heaven’. This first sight was mesmeric and overwhelming. In the Qitou manner she wore her hair - ‘Hair of the Manchu nobility’ - parted in the middle, braided and knotted into a bun to form the base of the headdress. An elaborate swaying crown studded with precious stones and jewels was held in place by gold pins and filigree - cat’s eyes, lapis lazuli from the Sar-i Sang mines in faraway Afghanistan, coral and turquoise and pearls from the Sunmgari River, diamonds from Africa.

The gown of Imperial yellow reached from the neck to the floor in the graceful Manchu fashion. It was fastened from the right shoulder to the hem with jade buttons, and brocaded so extensively with Wistaria vine in realistic colours that the yellow was scarcely visible. The Manchu shoes were richly jewelled and adorned with a hanging fringe of pearls. The stilt-like soles added six inches to her slight height. Under constant surveillance by eunuchs as numerous as the flies around the Forbidden City’s open sewers, she was hemmed in by endlessly conspiratorial mandarins and princes and ubiquitous censors ready to denounce anyone for a bribe. Her amiability was the more unexpected in the face of the heavy duties of court life, from which there was no respite. Grand Council meetings began at 4am.

On my way to Peking I had visited the southern province of Anhui where ‘The Venerable Ancestress’ was born some seventy years earlier. Her father Huizheng was a Manchu officer in the Blue Bordered Banner regiment. The future Empress Dowager was named Yehonala and later nicknamed ‘the Orchid Lady’. Who could have known the young woman from the Manchu Yehenara clan was destined to rule over the Middle Kingdom for 50 years, the supreme female overlord of a feudal society? Without the most extraordinary twists and turns of fate, rather than here, she might have lived out her life, unknown, in the provinces.

A man with the wrinkled face and skin of old parchment stood behind her in the shadows. It was the Chief Eunuch Li Lien-ying. By reputation he was a compulsive intriguer. When he spoke his voice was low and pleasant, his manners insinuating and elegant. To emphasize his importance to her, the Empress Dowager had in public presented him with the jade ‘ju-yi’, symbol of Royal power. He frequently wore the Dragon robes sacred to the use of the sovereign. He styled himself ‘Lord of nine thousand years’ - only one degree lower than the Emperor, the ‘Lord of ten thousand years’.

Li Lien-ying’s corruptly-gained wealth was enormous. He owned farms, pawn-shops and lucrative money-changing establishments. Four years later when his obituary appeared in The Times, Peking bankers estimated his worth at over two millions Sterling from the corrupt sale of official posts. On his death the apartments of this former cobbler’s apprentice were found stacked to the ceilings with dragon robes and tribute silk.

I turned my gaze to the ‘Son of Heaven’. He was clutching a jade piece to cool his palms. The sight of him roused my professional concern. He was pale and listless, with a glazed expression and a troublesome irritation of the throat. The symptoms spoke of terrible events in earlier years, giving rise to neurasthenia, the equivalent of the shell-shock often observed but seldom addressed after savage and unsuccessful military campaigns. The nostrums prepared for him by his Chinese doctors with their reverential talk of vapours and occult influences would most likely mirror the curatives offered by mediaeval European physicians.

It was then I realized the Empress Dowager was beckoning to me. Nervously I stepped forward. To my surprise she pushed away her attendants and moved a few paces from the table.

In English she said, ‘Dr. Watson, welcome to my country. I have heard much about your chronicles. They are known all across the world. I hope I can be candid with you. It is my fate that those who hate me are more articulate than those who love me. They revile me and black out my accomplishments. I feel compelled to give utterance to my thoughts which you may take away, just as a bird leaves the hand that holds it and flies to a far off place. The destiny of the Middle Kingdom has been in my hands, and mine alone, for nearly fifty years. My death cannot be far distant. When you return to England I want you to tell your people the truth about me.’

With ‘We must talk, alone. I shall send for you,’ she fell silent. Her eyes strayed towards the seated Emperor. Our brief, unexpected meeting was over. I stepped away, bowing. A hand touched my shoulder. Next to me, smiling widely, stood the General.

‘Magnificent, isn’t she?’ he whispered.

He was, he told me, promoting the idea of declaring Tibet a Province of China the following November, to celebrate the Empress Dowager’s birthday.

‘I think the Old Buddha would like that,’ he remarked in jocular fashion. ‘After all, thirty years ago your Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli had Queen Victoria proclaimed Empress of India.’

That evening General Yuán and I dined together to discuss my findings and recommendations ahead of filing my final report. He held, he assured me, a very high opinion of Great Britain. Our ceremonial courtesies were ‘refined and civilized’, and we English ‘With our hands reaching high and our feet travelling far, we rise up like eagles and glare like tigers...’.

The main course over, his expression became serious.

‘On the subject of our Royal masters and mistresses, how is Sir Sherlock progressing? Has he discovered the existence of a plot?’

No, I told him. I repeated my comrade’s words, he had discovered ‘not a jot or tittle’ of a plot against Their Majesties.

‘In fact Holmes is becoming restless,’ I continued. ‘His bees are calling him home.’

Yuán looked relieved.

‘If the greatest detective in the whole of England sees no sign of a plot, I think we must assume the rumour-mongers were wrong.’

He said he would inform Their Majesties. He had no doubt they would agree to us setting off on the long journey home to England ‘but your departure must take place when Her Imperial Majesty has consulted the Court of Astronomers.’

The date must be of fortunate omen. That could take some time, he cautioned.

Back at my quarters the now redundant evening meal awaited me, a dish of lotus roots shredded and sweetened together with cabbage stewed with cucumbers and ginger. With the prospect of several days on our hands until spirits sanctioned our departure I opened a make-shift daily surgery in the cooler morning hours. The Temple’s only available consultancy room seemed to be a storage area for clocks. There were clocks everywhere, mounted or standing alone at every part of the hall, eighty-five in number. Within ten or fifteen minutes of every hour they chimed and played airs in eighty-five different ways.

I soon discovered the Manchu are direct and open, and while the Chinese are imperturbable for much of the time they are natural pantomimists. There was little difficulty in gauging where a patient’s complaint lay. After politely expressing respect for my absent parents and other deceased ancestors they contorted their faces and used violent gestures to point me. Other patients clustered around with a charming gravity, in voluble conversation over my tricks with spatula or stethoscope, intervening at will.

I made no charge to the poor though a donation was suggested from the better-off for Alicia Neva Little’s anti-foot-binding campaigns. The Manchu Empress Dowager regularly issued proclamations against the profoundly damaging practice of foot-binding much practiced by the Han, though with little effect as yet. I became accustomed to rows of silent amahs outside the Temple waiting to help their tottering foot-bound mistresses back to their sedans. As yet I have collected nothing for this cause. The Chinese do not pay doctors for their good intentions but in accordance with their results. For chronic ailments this takes time.

I had an exceptionally disturbing visit from a woman who came from afar, carried pick-a-back to my door by a man servant and deposited on the bare floor. Both feet had mortified off through the barbarous practice of foot-binding. The man servant handed me a large jar filled with a clear liquid, an alcoholic beverage, in which I could see the dark-brown remains of her mummified feet. The tiny toenails had fallen away and swayed gently at the bottom of the jar. She was heart-rendingly sure a foreign doctor would fasten the feet on her again.

Not once in these first few days did anyone bring a child despite the fact I could observe the entire gamut of childhood afflictions on a short walk along any of the Capital’s narrow, filthy lanes, or that dog-bites were everyday occurrences among young and old alike. I remarked to Wang Feng about the absence of child-patients. He pointed at the Aeroscope camera.

‘The Chinese believe foreigners take out children’s eyes and use the retro bulbar fat for photographs or worse.’

One day during a lull in patients Wang bowed and said, ‘Venerable and Respected Sir, Dr. Watson, I have a favour to ask.’

His tone was diffident. I responded with an encouraging wave.

He went on, ‘I am ambitious. I want to become like Sir Sherlock. I want to solve the most difficult cases like you do in England. Catch criminals who offend against society. One day I aspire to become the yushi dafu, Censor-in-chief. I want to be the highest-ranking state official supervising and controlling the officialdom of the Empire. Only then can I help wipe out so much corruption among our state officials.’

‘I commend your ambition, Wang,’ I replied, smiling at the rushed confession, ‘but how can I help?’

‘I was wondering if you could intercede with Sir Sherlock. The whole of China has heard of him. If he could spare time to teach me what he knows, the word would get around I was once the student of the greatest Consulting Detective in Europe. It would speed my advance. Otherwise,’ his face fell, ‘otherwise I shall never make my descendants as proud of me as I am of my esteemed ancestor the Judge Bao Zheng who lived nine centuries ago. If I am ever to live up to my family’s hopes I have to attain the highest degree, the jinshi.’

He paused and said, ‘You may wonder why I am only on the first rung. Purchasing sacrificial animals for the High Court is not an especially difficult exercise. By now I should be at least on Chung - purifying troops, salt control, inspecting frontier passes.’

‘Wang, you are very clever and your English is very commendable,’ I replied. ‘I have no doubt you can get to the top. Out of interest, why are you only on the first rung?’

‘In China, advance is achieved only if you pass the Imperial examinations. There are three tiers, local, provincial and Court exams. They are not based on scientific expertise. They are based on knowledge of the classics and literary style. There are many who blame the imperial system for China’s lack of technical knowledge and our defeat by foreign powers. I made my way easily through the preliminary examinations. I passed first in my year for the degree of Budding Talent.

Then my mother became ill. She died even though she was still young. We Chinese are entangled by the claims of family and the chains of immemorial custom. Piety towards parents is the greatest virtue. When a parent dies, we must mourn for twenty-seven months. Under Chinese law we are not allowed even to beget a son during those months. As a son myself I was obliged to follow the strict rituals of mourning. So I abandoned my exams and remained at home for more than two years.’

‘I’m sure Sir Sherlock will oblige any descendant of Bao Zheng,’ I told him.

My report was in the General’s hands. No word was forthcoming from the Summer Palace on when we could leave China. Holmes had discovered not the sniff of a plot against the Empress Dowager or the Emperor. To fill in the evening I attended the Crime Detection tutorial Holmes agreed to provide Wang.

Holmes began, ‘Depending on how long we remain here we shall cover a range of topics including how to avoid the Bull-in-the-China-shop approach to the crime scene so often a characteristic of self-styled experts in the art of detection. We shall discuss firearms identification, finger-print identification - the treatment of handwriting, paper and inks and features of documents, fibres and hair. Not a grain of dust should be moved, not a soul should be allowed to approach, no rummaging by investigators until the scientific observer has seen everything absolutely undisturbed and in situ.’

Holmes gave a slight smile.

‘Investigating Censor Wang, today’s instruction will cover the autopsy. I realize the way we perform our autopsies may horrify the people of your country, nevertheless to us the autopsy is commonplace. It constitutes one of the most important processes in the detection of crime. The only invasion of the corpse you allow are silver needles inserted into the body to elicit evidence of poison if the silver turns black. That would not be accepted as credible evidence in Europe or America.

Where a suspicious death has occurred the autopsy is a practice of great value and a necessity in the investigation of whether the deceased died through natural causes, for example myocardial infarction resulting from coronary artery disease, or from a particular injury - a bullet wound to the head, manual or ligature strangulation, poisoning, exsanguination caused by a stab wound, and so on.

The Procedure: the pathologist weighs and measures the body, notes the subject’s clothing, valuables and characteristics such as eye colour, hair colour and length, race, sex and age. He removes the subject’s clothes, examines the body, searches for gunpowder residue, paint flakes or other deposits, or identifying marks such as scars or tattoos, and of course injuries. Bodily fluids - urine, blood, vitreous gel from the eyes, bile from the gallbladder - are extracted and sent to a technician for analysis for drugs, infection, or chemical composition. If necessary the pathologist removes and dissects the chest, abdominal and pelvic organs, and possibly the brain.

The Organs: organs, especially the brain, are sometimes placed in formalin for days or weeks before the dissection is conducted. Finally, the body is lined with cotton wool and sewn shut with a special stitch. If the organs are to be returned to the body, they are placed in bags to prevent leakage. The corpse is then washed and prepared for the funeral.’

Footwear. ‘There is no branch of detective science,’ he told Wang, ‘which is so important and so much neglected as the art of tracing footwear marks. I place footwear high on a list of 40 evidence types,’ together with expert comment on gunshot residue, hand-writing, stains, dust, the shape and position of wounds, bite marks and a theory of cryptograms.

A further technical session was titled ‘Upon The Distinction between Ashes of Various Tobaccos’. To Holmes’s trained eye there was a great difference between the ash of a Trichinopoly and the fluff of Bird’s Eye shag tobacco. It was he who first studied a flake of Latakia and other tobaccos. Tobacco ash was hardly ever examined by the police except to say ‘There was someone here who smoked cigarettes.’

‘However,’ Holmes told Wang, ‘if you can say definitely that a crime has been committed by a man smoking an Indian cigar, that at once narrows down your search for the culprit.’

A puff of chalk went up as Holmes slapped his hands together.

‘Tomorrow evening we’ll resume with a detailed description of physiological materials for identification, such as blood, hair, tissues and semen.’

He turned to me.

‘Watson, for Mr. Wang’s edification, you may now take over on the topic of Evidence Photography.’

I spent a half-hour describing the Dark Room for processing photographic materials, special lighting, luminescent tests for blood and so on.

For the rest of the week Holmes presented an attentive Wang with a series of lectures which my comrade planned to incorporate more fully into his Magnum Opus-to-be, ‘The Whole Art Of Observation And Detection’.

It was quickly apparent listening to Holmes that by contrast with Scotland Yard detectives he paid great attention to the mundane. Mud and soil from various districts - Sussex clays, for example - would one day become classified much after the manner that Holmes was describing.

The final session described the modus operandi of well-known English and Continental burglars, the tell-tale way they employed nickel-plaited jemmies, adaptable keys, diamond-tipped glass cutters, rubber-soled shoes and black silk masks. This practical method of instruction justified itself abundantly. Wang was proving an excellent student.

There was no word as yet on when Holmes and I could pack up our goods and chattels and return to England.